Struggle Opportunity
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, HPGW, oneshot. The story of how Malfoy poisoned Harry against his friends and fiancee, or the story of how Draco rescued Potter from the clutches of people who didn't deserve him, depending on your POV. Threeshot. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Bastardy/Opportunity

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny

**Wordcount: **~25,000

**Warnings: **Profanity, angst, sex (implied het sex, explicit slash sex). Acknowledges the events of most of Book 7 but not the epilogue. Arguably both Weasley-bashing and Draco-bashing.

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **The story of how Malfoy poisoned Harry against his friends and fiancée./ The story of how Draco rescued Potter from the clutches of those who didn't deserve him.

**Author's Notes: **This fic is mainly an experiment in point-of-view. Therefore, don't necessarily take what _any _character says at face value.

**Bastardy/Opportunity**

It started when Draco saw Potter looking at wedding rings.

More to the point, it started when Draco saw the look on Potter's face.

He wouldn't have gone up to him or spoken to him if not for that look. So, if anyone was to blame for this, it was Potter. Draco had responded to a small piece of reality that he saw gleaming in front of him, far brighter than any of those rings. What would anyone who saw a Galleon do but pick it up? He could not be blamed.

"Trying to determine which of those things would actually make the Weaselette's finger less ugly?" Draco asked, stepping up behind Potter. They were the only two customers currently in the small, expensive jewelry shop in Hogsmeade, Janus Jewelry. Draco had come there for the hopeless task of attempting to find something beautiful his mother would like and which didn't resemble the pieces she already had. Draco took a moment to enjoy the stiffening of Potter's shoulders and the quick half-turn of his head before he added, "Give it up. There's nothing that would accomplish the task."

Potter faced him fully then. A less careful observer would have thought he looked exactly like normal, the prince defending his lady fair from evil. But Draco's gaze was caught by the weariness in those green eyes. Potter looked as though he'd been fighting these battles for so long that he couldn't remember any more why he'd begun.

"Fuck off, Malfoy," he said in a low voice, instead of launching into the angry rant that Draco expected. Then he turned back to face the rings, and tapped the glass case above a bright gold and diamond one that rested on a cushion of red velvet. The shopkeeper hastened to bring it out, unlocking the case with an emerald key she wore at her neck.

Draco stepped up beside him and examined the ring critically. In the end, he clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Too much fire for her," he said. "Her head's already ablaze, after all."

"Fuck off, Malfoy." This time, it was even softer, and Potter's fingers didn't tense on the ring. He handled it with such awkwardness and lack of interest, in fact, that Draco felt compelled to take it away from him and show him how he _should _be holding it.

"You don't fling around a gem like this as if it were a piece of meat, Potter," he said. He admired the diamond for a proper length of time, then turned the ring upside-down. The band was clean and, as much as Draco could tell without actually tapping his wand against it, pure gold. Draco smiled. "Beautiful," he said to the shopkeeper.

"Yes, sir." The owner, Peridot Templar, a young witch with long dark hair and brilliant green-blue eyes, gave him a reserved smile. Most of her attention was reserved for him and Potter, and Draco realized, after seeing her eyes dart back and forth a few times, that she was waiting for them to start dueling and burn the place down. He wanted to laugh, but restrained it for her sake.

"Much too beautiful for the likes of the Weaselette," he said, turning the ring over. "I think I'll buy it myself, though I'd like the band resized for my mother's finger." Templar nodded and took the ring, turning to go into the back of the shop, where she kept his mother's measurements on file.

Potter made a harrumphing noise next to him. Draco faced him and saw that his eyes held only dull curiosity. Draco frowned.

"Honestly, Potter," he said, "weddings are stressful, everyone knows that. But you have the power to _walk away _from things that are stressful to you." He paused thoughtfully. "Or haven't you learned that lesson about your power yet?"

Potter jolted and stared at him with wide, panicky eyes for a minute. Then he snorted and sneered. "Why didn't you just alter the ring yourself, Malfoy?" he asked, in a transparent attempt to deflect Draco's interest. "Surely you have the power."

"Unlike you," Draco said smoothly, "I prefer to have my work done by experts." He leaned forwards. That jolt intrigued him, and Potter wasn't going to throw him off the scent with bluster. "Seriously, Potter. You could have paid a professional lapidary to choose a stone for you and Templar to choose the ring it would adorn. Why didn't you?"

"None of your business." Potter turned away, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

"I think," Draco said, pitching his voice in the velvety way that he had seen affect other men before now, "that you're having some doubts. Some nagging thoughts at the back of your head. Their nagging is only going to grow louder every time. You _must _see that. And you can't delegate someone to listen to them."

Potter sniffed loudly. "I think I'll leave," he said, as if speaking to an audience of thousands. "The air in here's a bit _rank_." He tossed Draco an irritated glance and stormed out of the shop, his hands jammed in his robe pockets.

Draco laughed quietly and turned around as Templar stepped back out with the resized ring in her hands. At the very worst, he'd made Potter leave without the ring, and caused him to have to take the trouble to come back later.

At the best, he had planted some seeds that might grow into interesting flowers.

*

Ginny glanced up as Harry stepped through the door into their flat. She carefully held back a sigh when she saw his scowl. He had worn that expression every time he had gone hunting a ring so far, and now it meant that he had failed yet again.

Ginny had told him, both by hinting around the issue and outright, that she didn't need a fancy ring. She would be as happy to wear a small one with a poor stone as she would be to wear the gaudiest piece of finery that Harry's Galleons could purchase. What she really wanted was _him_, not the diamond to sit on her finger.

But Harry insisted that she deserved the best, and he kept hunting it down—without any notion of what the best looked like. Ginny was sympathetic, but the wedding was in a month. She wondered what would happen if the day arrived and Harry didn't have a ring for her.

She already had his, small and tasteful and set with an emerald to match his eyes. Harry had smiled when he saw it. It was the best smile Ginny had seen him give in months, with all the people clamoring for an invitation to the wedding. She had hoped that she would see it answered by another smile on his face today, as he came in with the piece of jewelry he'd spent so much time seeking.

"Still no luck?" she asked gently, and stepped forwards to kiss him on the cheek and massage his shoulders. Harry reached up and clutched one of her hands, keeping it still. Ginny leaned towards him. That usually meant something bad had happened and he wanted to tell her about it with no distractions.

"Fucking Malfoy." His voice was so guttural that Ginny had to spend a minute sorting through the sounds before she knew what he was saying.

When she knew, she wished she didn't.

Harry was—strange—about Malfoy. He had seemed pleased when the bastard didn't go to Azkaban, but he had spent a long time scowling at his photograph in the paper, too. He'd walk out of a Ministry function if it turned out Malfoy was there. But then he'd spend far too much time talking and speculating about _why _he was there. Ginny had learned a year ago that the best plan was to nod and smile while Harry was in full flood and then turn the conversation away from Malfoy as soon as possible.

Now, she thought it was one of the listening times. "What did he do?" she asked, not trying to massage him again but keeping her hands resting on his shoulders as support.

"Told me that I couldn't find the right ring," Harry said. "Insulted you. Took away the ring I _was _looking at and had Templar change it for his mother instead." He broke free of her with a growling sound—Ginny had thought it was an exaggeration that people growled until she spent more time around Harry—and slammed a hand against the wall. "What gives _him_ the right to be there?"

"He probably was looking for something for his mother," Ginny said as calmly as she could. She walked up to Harry and took his hand firmly when he would have hit the wall again. She sneaked a look at it—Harry hated too much fussing—and was relieved to see that Harry hadn't broken a finger or even torn a nail. There was a red mark on the heel of his palm, but it would fade soon enough. "The big question is, are you going to let him ruin your day? Or are you going to get over it and show him that he can't control you like that?"

Silence, as Harry blinked at her. Then he smiled, and Ginny bathed in the dazzling warmth that always flooded her when he did. Her mother had said once that you would know you were in love with someone by the way you felt when they smiled. Ginny had known the first time Harry really looked at her when he grinned that she was in deep, for life, and there was no going back.

"You're right," Harry whispered, taking her hands and kissing them. "Why should he get to affect my mood and walk away being all high and mighty?"

Ginny laughed and linked her arm with his. "There's no reason that he _should_," she said, "but it can happen if you're not careful."

Harry looked remorseful for a minute. Then he shook his head and said, "I know that I've let that happen sometimes, Gin. But I promise that I'm going to be different from now on. I don't want to let him win."

Ginny concealed a sigh. Trust Harry to see it as a competition, though Harry and Malfoy hadn't even competed at Quidditch at in years. But at least it soothed him, and so she answered in the same spirit, "He's never deserved to win. He doesn't know." She leaned up and kissed Harry on the mouth this time. "Now, why don't you go and change that robe? It has mustard from your lunch on it."

"Shite." Harry looked down in surprise and touched the mustard stain, shaking his head, before he walked into the bedroom.

Ginny leaned against the wall and smiled. She had half-expected him to ask why he should change. But it seemed that he had remembered their dinner reservation at the Palazzo tonight without any reminders from her.

_That's the man I love. Thoughtful and generous and, if he has his faults, that's no more than anyone else does. _Ginny glanced up into the mirror hung on the opposite wall and saw her smile turn wry. _God knows I'm not perfect myself._

By the time Harry came out again, in green robes that looked particularly good at him, he seemed to have forgotten all about Malfoy, and Ginny determined that Malfoy would _stay _forgotten for the rest of the evening.

*

_Well, well, well._

Draco leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows. He was dining alone, Blaise unexpectedly having been called away by the news that his mother was about to give birth to his younger sibling. Draco had learned enough about Mrs. Zabini to know that it was remarkable she'd decided to have another child at all, so he could forgive his friend's defection.

The dining room of the Palazzo was a looming place of white marble and glass, the glass inserted in swirling patterns and small, round windows in the middle of larger swathes of stone. Beyond the glass was darkness, no matter what the real weather outside was like at the moment. The floor had its transparent stretches and its darkness, too, so that the restaurant appeared to be hovering in the middle of a void. Draco rather enjoyed the effect, but many other people didn't, and even fewer could afford the Palazzo's prices. All of these things made it rather unlikely that he would see Potter and his vulgar fiancée there.

And yet here they were, sitting down at a large table in the center of the room, right above one of the transparent windows. Draco laughed silently. He was sure that had been the She-Weasel's doing. She probably hoped that someone would try to take a picture up her ridiculous red gown from beneath the window, so that she could get righteously offended.

Potter, of course, coughed and looked uncomfortable when he realized the avid glances he was attracting from all over the dining room. It wouldn't have been his idea to come here.

Draco looked again at the Weaselette, smiling graciously up at the waiter and then nodding to the glances of the people around them with what she probably imagined was a becoming flush in her cheeks. Yes, it had been all her idea to come here, Draco was certain.

And that meant there was no reason he shouldn't stand up, once the waiter was gone, and go over to have a bit of fun with Potter. The little tart deserved it for coming into a place she could never have afforded if not for Potter's company and money.

*

Ginny saw Malfoy walking towards them long before Harry noticed. Harry had his nose buried in the menu the way he always did when they came to the Palazzo, his sharp frown testifying to the fact that he had no idea what to order. Ginny had intended to suggest that he try the delicate sandwiches he'd liked before, but Malfoy stole her words.

She at least had time to prepare herself for some unpleasant insult and touch Harry on the arm in warning before Malfoy drawled, "Potter. Weasley. How unexpected to meet you here." His grin was lopsided, and it was beyond Ginny why so many witches thought him handsome, enough to write in and protest when _Witch Weekly _didn't put his name on a list of eligible bachelors.

"Malfoy."

Harry was tense as he looked up, the menu rattling slightly against the table. Ginny touched his arm harder and nodded back to Malfoy. So far he hadn't said anything too terrible, and she hoped he would keep it that way. "Hullo."

Malfoy tilted his head quizzically. "Now, I just saw Potter a few hours ago," he said, "so I can't be surprised by the fact that he's a bit tired of my company. But a greeting as insipid as _that_, Weasley, when you haven't seen me for years and must have all sorts of venom stored up to shoot at me?" He grinned at her, and Ginny wouldn't have been surprised to see a pair of vampire fangs poking out from among his normal teeth. He might not suck blood, but was vicious enough to be one. "Go on. I promise to listen to your first two insults without responding. It's the only way to make this a fair contest."

Ginny looked up at him steadily, not giving in like she wanted to—and like Harry wanted to, from the way he was trembling beside her. She was busy trying to figure out why Malfoy would be so angry at her in particular. Before, he'd insulted her as part of the Weasley family, but he'd never paid any special attention to her the way he was doing now.

Then she saw the way his eyes moved sideways to Harry, his lips lifting in a tiny pleased smirk, and she knew.

He'd chosen to snarl at her because she was the one of the Weasley family who was lucky enough to date Harry. He must still be regretting the fact that Harry had never been his friend, and in fact had rejected him for Ron and the side of the light. It wouldn't surprise Ginny a bit if that bitterness against Harry covered some kind of complicated, twisted longing.

And he probably assumed that no Weasley had a right to be in a place like the Palazzo, either, even if Harry Potter did.

"Well," Ginny said, with a calm that she knew would fool Malfoy even if it didn't fool Harry, because Malfoy didn't know her well, "that's a generous offer. But I'm not interested. I don't think _either _of us have ever been less interested in what you're offering, Malfoy." She picked up her menu again and smiled sideways at Harry.

He'd been staring at Malfoy, but he looked at her in wonder when she said those words. She saw the realization light up his eyes a moment later. She was asking him to hold back from reacting to Malfoy, because she had also chosen to hold back. He nodded and slumped down in the chair as if he hadn't a care in the world, whistling softly.

Ginny wanted to roll her eyes. Harry overdid the acting sometimes—and he didn't have to slouch. But from the white look of Malfoy's face, being ignored really was the ultimate insult.

*

The little bitch was trying to imply that he wasn't good enough to share her presence.

And she was implying that he would have chosen to fuck her.

At any point in time. At any point in history.

That a Malfoy would fuck a Weasley was unthinkable. That one of the Weasleys would choose to believe it was less so, but that one of them would think to say it to his face…

Draco was speechless with rage. But he realized a moment later that he had _revealed _that, and that standing around silent wouldn't be productive any longer. Besides, Potter was looking ostentatiously in the other direction, and that would imply that he wasn't interested any longer to the people who watched them.

Draco could not allow himself to be ignored or dismissed. It would do nothing at all for his social prestige, and the people in the Palazzo right now were either ones that he saw quite regularly or friends and associates of people he did. They would spread the tale of how Potter and the Weaselette had shut him out if he wasn't careful.

That meant he had to give one final stroke, one cut so devastating, so _harsh_, that everyone would see the Weaselette bleeding as from an open wound.

And he had to take a longer-lasting, more personal revenge. But Draco thought he already knew how to do that. At the moment, what he had to come up with was the insult.

He bowed low, low enough that it got curious glances targeting them again and made the Weaselette actually look up from her menu. Then he murmured, loudly enough that Potter could hear them but softly enough so that the words wouldn't travel to other tables, "I suppose the offer you're making the final arrangements on in a month's time _does _rather fill your head." He gave Potter a look of pity. "I hope that the heat between her legs is enough to make up for the chains she'll put on you, Potter."

He saw Potter's eyes widen. More, he saw Weasley looking as pale and sick as he'd pictured her looking, followed at once by a rush of blood to the face that did nothing for her complexion.

Best of all, her hand dropped to her side as if searching for a wand. Then she seemed to remember they were in public, and her hand closed into a useless fist instead.

_What would she have done, hit me with a Bat-Bogey Hex? _Draco laughed to himself as he sauntered back across the dining room and settled with a flourish of his robes into a seat at his table. The buzz of excited talk swarmed around him. More than one person looked towards Potter and Weasley's table with interest.

Draco hid his grin behind his wineglass.

As enjoyable as all of Weasley's reactions were, the best one was that Potter was still staring at him, then looking back and forth between him and Weasley, as if he had never before considered that she might be whoring herself to him for fame and money.

_He's a fool not to have considered the possibility, _Draco admitted to himself as he sipped at the exquisitely sweet wine, _and I'm not usually attracted to fools. On the other hand, I can appreciate his fame and money the more, having a certain—notoriety—of my own, and no lack of funds. _

_And it might be that there are hidden treasures buried behind those staring and blinking eyes._

*

"I would _never _suspect that of you."

Ginny nodded, letting her head rest on Harry's shoulder. She hadn't been able to enjoy her dinner, since Malfoy had accused her of—of—

It still made her face flame to think about that. As if she would have chosen anyone who had Harry's power in wizarding society, anyone who was rich!

She had her pride, just like Malfoy did. It was just that hers was based on _real _things, better things than a stupid belief in blood prejudice.

She was independent enough that she wasn't going to resign her control over to anyone else and consent to be his little pet wife. She'd stood up to her brothers, she'd stood up to her parents and become a Quidditch player even though they wanted something steadier for her, and she'd stood up to danger when she tried to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office during the war. She _should _have been allowed to fight in the war.

_Harry didn't stand up for me when Mum decided I was a child and I couldn't fight during the Battle of Hogwarts._

But she smothered that old ember of resentment quickly. Harry had had a lot of other things on his mind just then. He'd told her how much, and Ginny knew she was the only person other than Ron and Hermione who would ever hear of that, how he had died and come back to life as part of the price of defeating Voldemort. They'd cried over that together, holding each other.

She was strong. She shouldn't have allowed a few words of Malfoy's to devastate her, no matter how sharp they were.

"I know," she whispered. "But knowing that other people might—"

"I'll tell them they're wrong, no matter how many times they say it." Harry's voice was strong and steady, and his arms clasped and supported her. "And I'm going tomorrow to find a ring that we can use. No more excuses."

Ginny tightened her arms around his shoulders. _This _was why she loved him. Maybe he was slow to find the right ring, maybe he overacted, maybe he didn't always support her, but he was there, doing the right thing, when it was most important.

*

It took longer to corner Potter alone than Draco had thought it would. It seemed that Potter had wrapped himself about with other Aurors or with his friends when he went out, and Draco had no desire to make his first move in the game in front of them. Among each group of people was someone smart enough to understand, as Potter would not, that Draco was compelled by something else than desire for him.

So Draco had to wait until he saw Potter leaving the Ministry one evening. Potter had a rather odd ritual: he paused outside the door and tilted his head back to watch the stars. Draco had seen him do it before, but most of the time he spent only a minute at it, then shook his head and walked on.

This time, he stood there with his eyes fastened on the star Sirius for two minutes—more than enough time for Draco to ascertain that there was no one else around, perform a few preliminary protective charms on himself just in case anyone tried to hex him, and step out of hiding.

Potter turned towards him without taking his eyes off the star. _Auror training, _Draco mused. When Potter looked down and at him, he blinked. It seemed that he hadn't expected to find Draco there, despite the actions he took that said he thought the wizard watching him no threat.

"Malfoy. What do you want?" Potter asked the question in a weary, annoyed tone. His hand rested on his wand in his pocket. He didn't bother drawing it, Draco noticed with a faint sense of resentment. Of course, he wasn't here to hurt Potter (physically), but it was rather insulting to know that Potter didn't consider him a threat.

"Other people aren't allowed to enjoy a beautiful starry night?" Draco kept his voice light, with a hint of laughter, in purposeful contrast to the world-weary tone that Potter had decided to adopt. It worked, too. Potter cocked his head, perhaps wondering what he found funny, perhaps subconsciously influenced, as Draco had intended him to be, by the "fact" that Draco noticed the stars, too.

"Of course," Potter said. "But most of them don't choose to enjoy it near me."

He slammed his mouth shut in the next moment and scowled. So he hadn't meant to reveal that bit of bitterness, Draco noted. Well, no matter. That wouldn't keep him from seizing and using it.

"Good night, Malfoy," Potter said, trying to push his way past Draco.

Draco caught his arm. Potter whirled on him in much more of a rage than Draco had anticipated, snatching his arm away and raising his hand as if he would strike at him in the Muggle way. Draco hadn't thought he would need his wand during this encounter, but he cocked his head, ready to trigger the loaded spring that attached it to his arm if necessary.

Then Potter dropped his hand on his own and rubbed his temple. "Who the fuck cares?" he muttered. Draco wasn't sure who the potential addressee of that question could be, but he resolved to find out.

"Lonely, Potter?" he asked. "I know all about loneliness. Few people really _like _to spend much time with someone who's marked out as different, by fame or money or power. Those stories about the loneliness at the top of the pinnacle—"

"Are just stories," Potter snapped. He was glaring at Draco now with a force that made Draco lick his lips. Compared to the fine meal of this enraged Potter, the irritated one he had seen at Janus Jewelry and the Palazzo was an appetizer. "You needn't try to tempt me into feeling sorry for you _that _way, Malfoy. We're nothing alike."

"Of course not," Draco said. He stood there with his hands held loosely at his sides now and his tone deliberately musing. "We didn't spend six of the same years at Hogwarts. We didn't oppose each other. We didn't play Quidditch. We didn't both become famous in the wake of the war, though for rather different things—"

"Those are minor similarities," Potter said. His voice was hard with contempt now, and the fire was guttering in his eyes, which Draco didn't like. "And you're hardly the first person to approach me with stories of false sympathy and murmurs about how I should do something to take advantage of my power."

"Did I say anything about taking advantage of it?" Draco spread his hands to indicate his innocence. He was getting rather fond of playing someone more harmless than he really was. It got him the _best _baffled glares from Potter.

"You don't need to," Potter said flatly. "Of course you think I should. That's the kind of person you are."

Draco smiled, pleased in spite of the setback that this might make for his plans. It delighted him that Potter had noticed him enough to _know _what kind of person he was, no matter what the outside pressures against him exerting that notice.

"I think you're a fool not to take advantage of it, yes," Draco admitted.

Potter looked up at the stars as if inviting them to be witnesses of how well he knew Draco.

"But I've accepted that you won't," Draco said. "Indeed, I'd accepted many things about you down the years. That you were the perfect hero since the war, becoming an Auror the way you'd always dreamed. That you were going to marry Girl Weasley." He paused for effect, though not too long, because it was dangerous to let Potter think about the insult to his bitch for too long. "That you were perfectly happy and contented." He let his voice drop and leaned closer without actually _moving _closer. Potter was too volatile for that at the moment. "That last isn't true, is it? How many people know?"

Potter's nostrils flared delicately. The fire came back to his eyes.

But he turned his back on Draco with a loud, false laugh. "Your little spies, whoever they are, obviously haven't been doing their jobs, Malfoy, if you think _that's _the part of my life that's wrong," he said, and Apparated out.

Draco breathed slowly, several times, before he Apparated home. He was not sure how successful he'd been.

But that increased uncertainty simply increased his passion for the game.

*

Ginny opened the box slowly, her hands trembling. It had taken Harry a week to find the ring he wanted, but he'd done it at last, and his eyes were wide and dark as he watched her. Ginny could hardly bear to look at him. He was so _intense_, sometimes. Ginny thought that dying and coming back to life after he'd defeated Voldemort had ripped most of the laughter out of him.

But now—

Now she tilted back the lid of the box, and there was the ring waiting.

It was perfect. The band was simple gold, unadorned. Ginny wondered if it had been like that or if he had asked for it; sometimes it was hard to find a wizarding wedding ring that didn't have a blessing engraved on the band, or a protective spell. A single prancing lion flowed along the edges of the stone, its body so odd and wavy that Ginny knew she would trace it with her finger over and over again.

The stone was a ruby.

Ginny ran her finger across it, startled by its smoothness and the deep red color. The fire seemed to surge and follow the path of her finger. Maybe it really did? She didn't know much about jewelry.

She shivered and tilted her head back to stare up at Harry. "How can I ever thank you?" she breathed.

"You just did, by the way you looked at me," Harry said, and his voice was deep and as intense as his eyes. He leaned down to kiss her.

Ginny melted into the kiss, which curled around her like soft flame, melting her bones, her joints, her skin. Like this, she was absorbed into him, held and poured and molded into a new shape. But what she loved was that he gave himself over as fully to the fire as she did. He wasn't some controlling puppet master, coldly watching the effect he had on her. He was a giving, passionate lover.

That was another remembrance, like the way he always supported her during important things, to hold to her heart during the times when she was irritated with him.

Harry guided her towards the bedroom slowly, one hand behind her neck, one hand wrapped low around her waist. Ginny went with him, sometimes stumbling, sometimes leading the way, moving as gracefully as if she were in a dance. In fact, she thought she danced better with Harry in private than she ever would in public.

He laid her down on the bed and began to pull off her robes. He liked to undress her first, for some reason. Ginny lifted her arms to allow it, breath panting from her lungs, eyes half-shut against the sun-heat that was devouring her.

Afterwards, she lay with her head on his shoulder and breathed slowly, feeling the sweat leave her body in long, dreamy rivulets. Harry was flung out as usual, consuming more of the bed than he really needed, one arm tucked around her waist and the other tangled in the flow of her hair. Ginny had started keeping it long since she discovered how much Harry liked it, those red strands everywhere. She could always bind it up and put it under a covering or a hood of some kind when she was flying.

For some reason, in that moment her mind returned to the way that Malfoy had confronted them in the Palazzo, and she had to smile. She'd envied him his coolness, his distance from the situation. She shouldn't have. She could have coldness like that if she worked for it, but he would melt in this heat.

Then Harry turned his head and took her mouth in a lazy, self-assured kiss. Ginny parted her lips and prepared to be remolded again.

*

"Go, Ron!"

Draco paused and cocked his head. He would have recognized that voice anywhere.

Well, perhaps not anywhere. But in the last week or so, yes, he would have.

He leaned an arm on the back of the seat in front of him. He was at a private Quidditch exhibition that several of the British and Irish teams had agreed to give, the proceeds of which would go to charity. Draco had shown up to it because it never did his public reputation harm to be associated with charitable events—especially events where he didn't have to spend his own Galleons—and because he wanted to evaluate the Falmouth Falcons before he placed a bet on them in their upcoming match.

But Ron the Weasel wasn't a player for any of the teams, as far as Draco knew. He worked as Potter's Auror partner. He might well be a spectator, but a player?

Then his eyes found the little knot of people down at the bottom of the grassy slope that the seats sat on, and he smiled tightly. Of _course _Weasley was trying out a broom one of the players used, and of _course _he would probably think that was all due to his own consequence and not his being Harry Potter's best friend.

Potter himself stood on the edge of the knot, cheering, his hands formed into fists that pumped into the air. Draco sneered. A coarse display when afforded to no real talent, such as the Weasel showed while he wobbled about on the broom over Potter's head.

With practiced eyes Draco watched Weasel urge the broom into a dive. He snorted. Weasley might have once been a good Keeper, but those days were gone now. The fool wasn't steering the broom right, wasn't using his weight—in fact, if he kept going, he would crash right into the seats—

Draco stiffened and got ready to move. That was, in fact, what the Weasel was about to do. A few startled screams indicated that other people had seen it, too.

And then a second figure on a broom rose to intercept him.

Draco managed to reconstruct the series of events by speaking to people later who had observed it more closely. He was glad, because it deserved more acknowledgment than his own wide-mouthed, stupid stare at that moment could have given it.

Potter had grabbed a broom from one of the Falcon players and risen from the ground as though someone had kicked him, a straight-up swoop that angled out to the side before it could have been safe. And yet he still managed to avoid hitting anyone who stood in that little swarm of people he'd flown out of. He twisted over and over, as though he was traveling along a braided rope, and then hit Weasley and knocked him off-course.

More than one person said they saw the flash as Potter pulled his wand from his pocket and began casting Cushioning Charms and Slowing Charms, to soften their fall and delay their descent. He did it so fast that Draco was left gasping. He could see the flashes of the spells and interpret them, too, but not when he was caught off-guard by the collision in the first place.

Potter landed a safe distance from the seats, with Weasley safely in his arms, with all their bones safely intact.

Safe, safe, safe. Everyone safe.

He seemed to have developed a habit of that.

But the talking and the sorting out of events came later. Draco knew enough about what he had seen at the time to know it was something extraordinary. And so he joined, or led—because he thought of it first and so he moved faster—the floodtide of people down from the seats to the center of the Pitch.

Potter was holding off the well-wishers who crowded around with practiced ease. A bubble of lighted air hovered next to his shoulder, expanding around him and the Weasel when someone tried to push too close. Potter's grin was hard-edged, and he kept his arm around his Weasel's shoulders as though he'd just rescued him from some fate far worse than the fall he deserved. Weasel, meanwhile, was grinning like an idiot and punching Potter in the side as though this was all a great joke.

Jealousy and rage took Draco by the throat. Jealousy, as always, because he would have paid more attention to this gift, to the gifts that Potter strewed around him with a free hand like Dumbledore dispensing oddities, than Weasel did.

Rage because…

Draco slowed. The rage concerned him.

He shouldn't get that angry because Weasel wasn't taking this seriously. Why _would _he take it seriously? If becoming an Auror hadn't caused him to grow up, then Draco doubted anything would.

He allowed a few spectators to sweep past him, his eyes narrowed, fighting with his own emotions. Potter, turning his head from side to side as if he wanted to make sure no Dark wizards were hiding nearby, saw Draco.

His mouth lifted in a snarl at once.

His own equanimity restored by the sight of his rival's foul mood, Draco smiled. Then he changed the smile. No one else was looking at him right now; Weasel had his head turned towards the side, and everyone else only had eyes for Potter. A public gesture between two people could be private under those circumstances.

He let the admiration and wonder he felt for what Potter had done shine through. He softened his smile and let the edge to it fade, and then he swept his eyes up and down Potter's body and sharpened it again.

Potter, who had been rather pale so far, stared at him with a tide of red rising in his cheeks. Then he ripped his gaze away from Draco and turned to another person who pushed her way through the crowd to him. Draco could see the relief running down Potter's spine like warm water as he dropped the bubble to let her through. She put her arms around Potter and laid her head, flame-red of course, on his shoulder.

The girl Weasley didn't appreciate what she had either, though, because after only a single brief embrace of Potter, she turned and started talking to the Weasel. And she wasn't scolding him. She was laughing with him!

She didn't care that that had been a stupid stunt for him to perform in the first place. She didn't care that Potter had been forced to act like a hero in public again, something he obviously hated. She just cared that it was a joke, and she accepted the Weasel's version of it without a qualm.

Draco shook—not that anyone standing near him, or even Potter, looking from a distance, could have noted it. This was purely a fine tremor that raced along the surface of his being and then dived beneath it, penetrating as deeply as his muscles.

Revulsion.

He had thought that it would be fun and amusing to take Potter away from the Weaselette. Why not? He would shame her in response for her having shamed him, and it would be amusing to have Potter dangle like a bauble on a chain for a time before Draco cut the chain and let him plunge.

But now…

Now, seeing the speed and the skill and the power that Potter still had, and which the Weasleys failed to appreciate, now Draco was disgusted the way he would have been if he had seen someone smearing a fine art treasure with fingerprints. He had rescued several treasures like that from the clutch of unworthy owners already: beautiful pieces of blown glass a hundred years old, a coiled brass dragon that came to life and sang if one whistled the right notes to it, a painting of the Persecution of wizards by Muggles that showed the agony of the dying and the glory of the flames at the same time.

The Weasleys did not deserve to have Potter.

And Draco would make sure they knew _they_ were the reason Potter was leaving them behind.

He moved forwards, slow and soft and heavy of foot as a stalking leopard.

*

Ginny kept one hand on Harry's shoulder as she spoke to Ron. There had been a minute when she was scared as she watched him go up, but she should have known better. This was _Harry_. He could be hurt, but not often. He was a skilled Auror. Saving people was what he _did_. Of course he was going to save Ron, and everything was going to be fine.

"And I reckon that you thought it would be a good idea to have Mum die early of a heart attack," she told her stupid brother.

Ron did look a little remorseful then, ducking his head while he blushed. "Yeah, I didn't think of that," he said. "But I really thought I could control the broom! It hasn't been _that _many years since I was up on one."

Ginny rolled her eyes, feeling Harry's shoulder tense under her hand. He would probably like to say some things to Ron, she knew, but when he got too angry, Ron simply stopped listening. It was better that Ginny try to bring her brother to some sense of what an idiot he'd been, since Hermione wasn't here. "And how long has it been since you were up on a professional Quidditch player's broom?" she asked with strained patience.

"Never," Ron said, giving her a look that clearly asked, _What's your point?_

Ginny shook her head. "You didn't think about those brooms being faster and stronger, and meant for a rougher game? Of course it's going to resist you if you don't control it well enough."

"Yes, it is," Harry said. "I had trouble controlling my own broom when I first started riding it up."

Ginny turned around to give him a grateful smile. That was the kind of thing that _would _make Ron think better of what he'd done. And he was doing it, if the way he scratched his neck and looked at the ground was any indication.

"Didn't think about that," he muttered. "Sorry, mate."

"Just don't do it _again_," Harry said, and clapped Ron on the back before he moved his arm off his shoulders. He was already turning as though he'd like to get under shelter. Ginny knew why. The first photographs had been snapped, and it wouldn't be long before the press got here.

"Potter."

Ginny froze when she heard that voice. She glanced over her shoulder, and sure enough, there was Malfoy, with a sneer on his face and dark amusement in his eyes.

Harry didn't acknowledge him, just clapped Ron on the shoulder again and got moving across the Pitch in the direction of the doors to the teams' changing rooms. So Ginny decided that she should ignore Malfoy, too. She followed Harry, her back stiff. But she didn't think that Malfoy would actually draw his wand and hex them in public.

She was almost certain.

"Running away?"

Malfoy didn't have to speak the words loudly. They made Harry jerk to a halt as though someone had planted a stone wall in front of him. Ginny held back a sigh. Harry _did _still have that stupid sense of daring that used to get him into such trouble during school, sometimes. Imply that he was afraid, and you could almost do whatever you liked with him.

"No," Harry said, with his teeth grinding as he turned back around. "I'm interested in getting a shower because I sweated a lot getting Ron down. I'm sure that I must _stink_ to someone with your refined sensibilities, Malfoy."

"You're no perfume, certainly." Malfoy drawled the words, and Ginny thought she sounded bored—until she took a look at his eyes, which were heavy-lidded and dark grey and as intense as Harry's got sometimes. "But you don't need to be. You aren't a perfume, and I don't require you to have the same qualities."

"What kind of qualities do you think I should have, then?" Harry was moving back towards Malfoy, his hand resting on his wand and his face massive and heavy with irritation, tempted into a fight after all. Ginny did sigh this time, and step between them. She trembled a bit under the gaze of hatred Malfoy gave her, then told herself it was understandable. Of course Malfoy would hate her for being able to interrupt the fight and so take away his chance of embarrassing Harry in public.

"It doesn't matter," she said, putting one hand on Harry's chest and leaning backwards. He hugged her automatically. That made Malfoy's eyes widen, and he slowly blushed. Ginny had no idea why. She didn't think she wanted to know. He was glaring with more hatred than ever. The blush couldn't mean anything good in combination with that. She turned and pressed her face against Harry's chest. "Let's go."

"Yes, let's," Harry said, his voice rough. He wrapped one arm around her, and she felt him kiss her hair.

Malfoy sucked in one harsh breath. Ginny had just emerged from Harry's embrace and started to walk beside him towards the edge of the Pitch when Malfoy spoke again, and this time his voice sparked and leaped with hatred, glowed and blazed with it.

"For someone who's not afraid of me, Potter, you do an excellent impression of it."

Harry stopped again. Ginny hoped she was the only one who could see the way his muscles trembled. He was trying hard not to respond. But he did turn his head around and spit at Malfoy across his left shoulder, "_You wish_."

"Not really," Malfoy said at once, so quickly that Ginny was sure he must have had the words ready. "What _I _wish for is your courage, your daring, your speed, your power." He paused a moment, and then added, his voice falling into so thick a silence there was no way it wasn't heard, "Your beauty."

Ginny closed her eyes in relief. _That was a mistake, Malfoy. _Harry hated being told he was beautiful.

"No, you don't," Harry said, in a voice so revolted that Ginny had to look up at him. She didn't recognize the expression on his face. Sure, he had looked scornful before when someone tried to compliment him, but never quite like this. If the compliment had been a physical thing, Ginny thought, he would have gripped it and thrown it back into Malfoy's face. "You really don't," Harry repeated, and pushed his fringe back to show his scar. "Imagine this cutting across your forehead, cutting you off from all semblance of a normal life. You don't want to look like that."

"Did I say that I wanted to _look_ like you?" Malfoy ventured another step nearer. Ginny swallowed. She had the strangest impulse to push Harry off the field right now, though Malfoy was less dangerous than most of the opponents that Harry had fought as an Auror. "Of course not. I want to _own _your qualities."

Harry gave a single laugh that ended too soon. Ginny leaned even closer to him and gripped his arm. He didn't seem to notice, which told Ginny this was bigger than Malfoy now. Harry only laughed like that when he was wallowing in one of his moods of self-pity. "Yes, I know. Detach them from me and they would be perfect." He shook his head, his hair flying.

"They mean nothing without the man who comes along with them."

Malfoy's eyes were wide and—glowing, Ginny thought. Somehow. She wondered if he was mad. It would make sense of some of the things he was saying, which were things no one sane would say.

Harry's mouth fell open, and he stared in uneasy fascination. The longer the moment stretched, the more upset Ginny became, because it seemed as if Malfoy had made an offer of some kind and Harry was giving it serious consideration.

Then Harry laughed.

The sound fell on the atmosphere around them like cleansing rain. Ginny felt herself take a deep breath. Her grip on Harry became looser. Harry put an arm around her and laughed again into Malfoy's face. Malfoy's lips looked almost blue with frustration.

"Good one, Malfoy," Harry said. "But everyone knows what you're like, and there's no evidence to contradict the conclusion that you're being a bastard now." He nodded almost pleasantly and turned his back, walking away with Ginny.

Ginny scolded herself for hardly speaking a word during the confrontation. She should have. Malfoy acted as if he wanted to _flirt _with Harry, and Ginny had a right to resent that as Harry's fiancée.

Instead, she'd kept silent because—

Why?

She didn't know.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Harry murmured into her ear. "God knows why I stood there listening to him as long as I did."

"Because you can be an idiot sometimes, Harry." Ron had caught up to them and was shaking his head, his eyes bright and amused. Ginny wondered if Ron noticed the way that Harry tensed and then relaxed. Probably not. Ginny was usually the only one privileged enough to notice things like that. Ron had already turned to her. "Where do you want to go eat?"

Ginny named the Three Broomsticks—it was distant enough from the Falcons' home field that there was unlikely to be a crowd—and off they went. There was plenty of laughter during the meal, and slapping of Ron by Hermione, who wasn't happy about the little dive he'd taken, and praise of Harry.

And yet, Harry sat silent, his eyes fastened on his mug more often than on the faces of the people around him, good friends and soon-to-be brothers-in-law and all.

Ginny was silent, too, watching him and wondering.

*

Draco stretched his arms and sighed. After an expert massage from one of the exclusive parlors in Knockturn Alley, the tension was finally gone from his back and shoulders.

A good thing, too. It had lingered there far longer than it should have, the product of Potter's laughter.

Draco was an intelligent man, however. He told himself to think back before the laughter, to the silence that had preceded it. What had he seen in Potter's eyes during those intense waiting, listening moments?

Revulsion, yes. It seemed that Draco's compliments had been spectacularly mistimed. Draco could understand why, since Potter had at first believed him to be speaking solely out of envy. He would have had enough of that in his daily life to choke an elephant.

But when Draco had said that he wanted the man who came along with those qualities, clearly implying that he believed Potter himself was intelligent, courageous, and beautiful—

Then the revulsion had changed, or at least become a background element only in the incredible picture of feelings that was Potter's eyes.

There was wonder there. Fascination. Surprise, as though Potter didn't get recognized for his qualities most of the time.

Attraction.

As much as Draco would have liked to spend time thinking about the attraction, he knew it was the surprise that would give him the key.

And he had ears. No matter how much Potter's laughter had discomposed him, he had listened to what had been said—and not said—as the Weasleys walked away with the man they, for now, had possession of.

Draco smiled at himself in the mirror and turned his head to the side. A small flick of his wand conjured an illusion of Potter standing beside him, and Draco admired how well that dark hair and deep green eyes complemented his own pale beauty.

Yes, he thought his next step would jolt Potter out of the rut it seemed he had fallen into, as well as providing a _spectacular _means of revenge on the Weasleys.

*

Ginny sighed and circled slowly down to the grass in front of their house, then pulled herself off the broom and began to do her stretching routine. Willa Tyneth, who she'd replaced as Seeker on the Holyhead Harpies, had told her that stretching was of the utmost importance. More professional players were injured as they grew older by soreness in their wrists and ankles than by anything else.

Besides, Ginny thought as she watched the muscles in her arms bunch and flex, and her legs extend in front of her, tremble, and then relax, if she watched her own motions, she might not think about Harry.

He'd acted distant for the last few days—and Ginny knew that he didn't have a stressful case, because she'd asked both him and Ron. It could be that he was upset and impatient with the wedding preparations; Merlin knew that Ginny didn't understand why they needed fifteen different kinds of flowers. But she was content to leave such things up to her mother. Her mother only had one daughter, who would only get married once. She deserved the right to indulge a little. Most of the time, she only contacted them to get their approval for her choices, and Ginny and Harry had learned early to nod and smile and do _nothing _else.

But still, Harry was moody and lay staring at the ceiling at night. Oh, he would close his eyes and breathe loudly when Ginny got into bed, but it wasn't as though she was fooled by that.

She sighed in deep relief when she picked up her broom and turned towards the house only to see him step through the door and glance around for her. It looked as though he was ready to tell her what was bothering him. Ginny ran up to him and kissed his chin. Harry grabbed her left hand and entwined their fingers.

"Hey," Harry said quietly. "Can you come with me and look at something?"

"Of course." Ginny pushed her wind-tangled curls out of her face. Her hair always frizzed up when she flew after a rain. She would have cut it, but since she wasn't going on tour again for four months and Harry liked it long, she let it grow.

Harry took her into the kitchen, breathing and swallowing constantly, the way he did when he was really nervous. "This arrived on Monday," he said. "I looked at it, and I had to look through it again and again before I could decide what to do about it."

Ginny understood when she saw the Pensieve on the table. Harry hated Pensieves, though when she asked him why, he only shrugged and said something about having seen something that upset him in one. He would have had to work up the courage to approach the memories before he could look.

Ginny never understood why, when he was so courageous over the much harder things he'd faced in the war, but it wasn't her place to get upset about it. She didn't like snakes, either, or bleeding things, after her adventure with Tom Riddle. And she'd never keep a diary again.

"I didn't know who sent it at first," Harry said. "There's only one memory, and I don't—" He shut his eyes and was still for a moment. "I couldn't understand why someone would want me to see it," he said with great care. "Of course, I do now."

"Who _did _send it?" Ginny leaned her broom against the wall and approached the Pensieve a bit more carefully than before. If it wasn't a friendly gift that Harry had been afraid of for no reason, as she'd assumed at first, then there might be almost anything in there.

"Malfoy."

Ginny paused, then folded her arms. "And you would believe anything that you saw in there? Why didn't you talk this over with me right away? _Harry._"

"Well, I didn't know at first," Harry said, his voice snappish. He leaned over her from behind, and Ginny lifted her shoulder coldly and turned away. But Harry didn't seem to notice. He just rearranged the Pensieve instead and pulled back. "Besides, Ginny, I know the signs of memories being tampered with. You know how many people try it when we request them to offer their memories as evidence."

Ginny sighed. "Yes, I know," she muttered. No matter how she looked at the Pensieve, it didn't seem any more ominous, so in the end she pulled it towards her and plunged her head in.

The bright colors of the "fall" into the memory swirled around her. Then they were gone, and she realized she was standing in Harry and Ron's office at the Ministry. Harry was out, though the steaming teacup on his desk said he'd probably only gone to use the loo. Ron was leaning back with his feet up on the desk, munching some of those greasy Muggle fish and chips Harry always _would _fetch for him from the nearest London shop. He was talking to a blonde Auror Ginny didn't recognize, who wore an amused expression on her face. The angle of the memory when Ginny first landed in it showed that Malfoy must have stood behind the door into the corridor and listened.

_Eavesdropper, _Ginny thought with a frown, and then listened to what Ron was saying. Malfoy had probably sent this as blackmail or something.

"Well, the truth is that he _hasn't _done much since the war," Ron told the other Auror. He paused to take a bite, and the grease ran down his hands and onto the red stubble he was growing into a not-very-successful beard. Ginny rolled her eyes. "He only does as much work as anyone else, but of course the papers aren't going to report it that way, because he's Harry Potter, see?" Ron took another bite and went on talking with his mouth full. "To tell you the truth, I think he's a bit slow sometimes. Could be he took one too many curses in the war." He leaned confidingly close to the blonde woman, who watched him the way she would a frog that had hopped across her path. "I do a lot of the thinking around here."

The Auror tried to conceal a laugh, but only succeeded in turning it into a yawn instead. "Of course you do," she said, and started drifting towards the door.

"Yeah," Ron said, staring hungrily at her. Ginny wanted to roll her eyes again. This was the kind of flirting that would get him into trouble with Hermione, though Hermione also knew that Ron truly loved her and wouldn't ever stray from her side. Ginny didn't know why it had upset Harry so much, though. "And I'm braver than you ever expected, too. I was the one who held off that wizard calling himself the Render until Harry could kill him."

Ginny snorted. Ron had "held off" the Render by acting as his hostage until Harry could cast the right curse.

But Ron was brave and intelligent on his own, and when the worst happened, he had always been Harry's best friend. Ginny couldn't see why Harry was putting so much stock in what Malfoy had seen.

"I think I hear my partner calling me," the blonde Auror said firmly, and ducked out the door. Ron sighed gustily and picked up his own teacup, flexing his arm and looking at the muscles as if he was using them for comfort.

The memory dissolved. Ginny found herself standing back in the kitchen, blinking, while Harry hovered next to her.

"Did you hear what he said?" he demanded.

"But he says things like that all the time," Ginny said. She put her hand on Harry's chin and held his face still so that she could look up at him. She didn't understand the anguish in his eyes. "He _always _says things like that, and he knows that it's bollocks as much as you do. If it really bothers you, why haven't you said anything about it before now?"

"I don't know," Harry said. His hand was curled into a sharp shape that made Ginny think he was going to reach for his wand in a minute, and that frightened her. Harry was overreacting to what Ron had said by so much that she started to wonder if someone had hit him with a Confundus Charm before he left work today. "But I think I've heard it too much lately. Everyone seems to think it's fun to joke that I'm stupid."

"We don't—I don't mean it," Ginny said. She wanted to say that Ron didn't mean it, either, but she'd just said that, and Harry didn't seem to be paying attention. She stepped close to Harry and wrapped her arms around him. "Harry. It's only stupid teasing." She spoke lightly, running her hands up and down his sides. "What does it matter next to your friendship? The friendship that's lasted for eleven years? The work you do together as Auror partners? It doesn't _matter_. I can't figure out why you're letting it affect you so much."

Harry took a deep breath and held it. Ginny recognized it as one of his calming techniques, so she didn't squeeze him or insist on an answer. She kept up her tender stroking and kept her opinion that Harry had overreacted to herself.

Why was he even _listening _to Malfoy? He'd heard what the man had said to him at the demonstration match, and he must have seen the glare of hatred that Malfoy gave her. It was perfectly obvious that he was trying to split them up because he hated Ginny and her family and wanted to hurt Harry. Harry wouldn't have paid attention to most other Slytherins who had done the same thing.

_Because Malfoy commands his attention, _Ginny reluctantly answered herself. Maybe it was only because Harry had played Quidditch opposite Malfoy or because Malfoy had so persistently teased him in school, but Harry didn't have the maturity he should have had that would let him ignore the taunts like this Pensieve. It was as if part of him was perpetually eleven years old, listening for the whispers that his school rival would give on the other side of the room or waiting for the thrown nettle to splash into his cauldron.

"I don't know," Harry whispered at last, and then he was laughing and shaking his head the way he had after Malfoy insulted him last week and Ginny could relax. They were getting married in a fortnight. _This _was the man she was going to marry, not that tense, silent stranger. "I don't know," Harry repeated, and kissed the top of her head. "You're right. One moment of saying I'm stupid isn't who Ron is. He came back after the locket. He was the one who hit it with the Sword of Gryffindor and the one who saved my life when I plunged into that pond. I have to remember that."

"Yes, you do," Ginny said, releasing him with a slight push. "Go make me something to eat. I'm starving."

Harry gave her a small, sly smile. "I already Apparated to the Three Broomsticks and got food from there," he said. "I thought we'd probably want to eat in tonight." And then he bent down and kissed her, long and slow so that Ginny shivered and her lungs ached.

They didn't make love, as it happened, but they leaned together on the couch and talked about Hogwarts and the wedding and Quidditch and how many children they wanted to have, and that was almost as good.


	2. Chapter 2

"That was pretty bloody stupid of you."

Draco kept his smile angelic as he laid down his newspaper. Of course he had known about Potter coming to see him from the moment he landed on the gravel driveway that led up to the Manor, but he could _pretend _that this was a total surprise that nonetheless found him in a moment of cool relaxation.

Besides, Potter had lost the game in a way he didn't anticipate. He had come _here_, instead of waiting for Draco to seek him out.

"What was pretty bloody stupid?" Draco asked, picking out the last words as if he'd never heard them before. It was true that they were words not often uttered in the Manor. He made a languid motion with one hand, and a house-elf appeared at the end of the couch. Which one it was didn't matter to Draco; they were all identical in any case. "Bring me white wine. I don't know what Mr. Potter would like to drink." He looked courteously at Potter and waited for a reply.

Potter gaped at him for a moment, as if he didn't know why Draco wasn't leaping to his feet with his wand in hand. Then he snapped his mouth shut and drew himself up straight. Draco smiled back lazily. Yes, that kind of gesture could make Potter look stupid and cause him to question his choice, but in reality, he didn't think he needed to be ashamed. Potter had a hard, considering spark in his eyes now as he looked at Draco. Yes, Draco hadn't made the expected response; now Potter was interested in _why_ that had happened.

"I want spiced chocolate," Potter said in a challenging tone as he sat down on the chair opposite Draco's couch. "Nutmeg."

The elf bowed and vanished. Draco raised an eyebrow. "I never knew that you drank that sort of thing," he said. It was a drink that some pure-bloods liked and it was served in pure-blood restaurants, true, but Potter wouldn't have spent much time in those kinds of places.

Potter smirked, as if he were satisfied with surprising Draco. "I had to drink it while I was hiding undercover and watching some criminals who wouldn't let any non-pure-bloods near them," he said. "I developed a taste."

"Ah." Draco wondered if Potter's fiancée knew that. He thought not. He arranged himself to be more comfortable in his seat, folded the newspaper so it wouldn't wrinkle, and waited for Potter to continue.

Potter was content to sit in silence and study Draco for some time before he did. Draco looked back, more than content, on his own part, to see what emotions crossed Potter's face.

His face was shadowed as he sat there. He looked like the hardened veteran of war that he was. On the other hand, he didn't look joyless, the way he had when Draco met him at Janus Jewelry and the Quidditch demonstration. Having a mental puzzle to solve agreed with him, Draco thought.

_None of his so-called friends would say that, since they think he's so stupid, but it's true._

The elf came back with the wine and the chocolate. Potter sighed as he drank his, closing his eyes and letting the smell seep into his nostrils long after he'd swallowed. Then he shook his head and set the cup down on the table next to him. Draco controlled his flinch. The cup wasn't hot enough to mark the table, or Potter couldn't have held it, he told himself sternly.

"I can't understand this," Potter said quietly. "I know that you started this because you hate the Weasleys, and making me walk away from them probably sounded like a good idea." He clasped his hands together and leaned forwards, eyes so intense that Draco shivered and thought about other times that Potter might look like that. "But I'm not going to do it. And what you offered me was fairly weak proof, as I understood when Ginny explained it to me. Ron doesn't always speak highly of me, that's true. I don't always speak highly of _him_. That doesn't mean I should march away from years of friendship with him and—what? Join you in whatever thrilling adventures you have instead?" Potter cocked his head skeptically.

Draco had to avert his eyes, because otherwise there was every chance that Potter would see the weakness in them. Powerful, questioning, quiet, forceful. No one had told him Potter was like this. Draco had vaguely reckoned that there might be someone like this under the surface, but he hadn't _known_.

_Of course no one told me about him. There 's no one else except Potter himself who knows this man exists._

Draco took another look at Potter's face.

_And maybe the criminals that he hunts down, sometimes. I wonder they don't give up the moment they see him staring at them._

"Wrong end of the stick," Draco said with a faint smile, when he thought he wouldn't sound too eager. On the other hand, maybe he needed to sound eager? It was honest admiration that had got Potter's attention on the Quidditch pitch, after all. He leaned forwards in turn, and saw Potter blink as though someone had flung a shower of gold dust into his eyes. "I wouldn't be opposed to thrilling adventures, but it's not Weasley I want to take you away from. Not _that _Weasley."

He waited for it to click. And it did, but as a shadow across Potter's face and a slow, heavy shake of his head.

"You can't—want to _sleep _with me," he said, as though Draco might mean a different thing by that than everyone else did.

"Why not?" Draco's voice came out breathy and greedy. He didn't care. Potter had grown up a bit while still being intrigued enough by Draco to come _here_, of all places. He denied that Draco could make up walk away from his friends, but he had obviously still brooded on that Pensieve memory—which had taken Draco no effort to catch; just listen to Weasley long enough and he would start disparaging Potter—and accepted it seriously into the dark part of his brain. Yes, this was someone Draco wanted. Perhaps it wouldn't be a life-long romance like the one Potter (thought he had) shared with Girl-Weasley, but Draco was willing to wager that it wouldn't actually take that to catch Potter.

"Because—why _would _you?"

The bewilderment expressed by those wide eyes and that halting breath was real, Draco thought in wonder. Not fishing for compliments. Even though he hardly understood how it could be. But the great difference between him and the Weasleys was that he took Potter seriously when he said he didn't understand and explained, instead of accusing him of stupidity.

"You're quite attractive," Draco said. "There are the power and the money aspects, as well." He swirled the wine in his glass and took a sip. Potter just blinked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. Draco hissed between his teeth. "You must have had enough propositions in the first years after you defeated the Dark Lord that—"

"That's what I mean, though," Potter interrupted. "Your finding me attractive depends on the money and power. And _those _are the things you want to sleep with, not me. It would be even better for you if you could skip straight over the sleeping together and just get to owning and wielding them, right?" His smile was wry, with a distant, grainy kind of bitterness that Draco would have thought too complex an emotion for his face, if he hadn't seen it there.

_Of course he would have heard propositions like this before. And rejected every single one of them. _Draco cursed himself for not realizing that.

"You don't know me," Potter said. "Don't try to tell me that my _cleverness_, of all things, attracted you." He gave a credible sneer, and Draco wondered if his friends would recognize the source of it: their constantly telling Potter that he was a bit slow. "We don't have a sense of humor in common, or hobbies, or friends, or shared friendly experiences, or any bit of it. So you can't really want to sleep with me. You want to sleep with some shade of me, some picture that you've made up. I'm curious to know what kind of picture it was, I admit, because no one's ever tried sending me a memory of my best friend saying something he says all the time before." He leaned back in his seat and surveyed Draco with one raised eyebrow.

Draco took a slow, deep breath. He didn't have an immediate answer, but he thought Potter would probably scorn him if he did. He was used to slick, sophisticated answers, and quick ones. His false friends probably gave him those all the time.

Draco knew exactly what the answers would be.

_I didn't mean that, Harry._

_Oh, he's just impatient, Harry, he didn't mean it._

_You know what we mean, don't you, Harry?_

Tiny lies. Small lies. But over time, they would pile up and wear away at someone like Potter, who valued honesty.

And so Draco went with the prompting of his instincts, and was honest in return.

"At first I simply wanted to take you away from the Weasleys," he admitted.

Potter's eyebrows shot up, and then he laughed. The laughter was frank and pleased. Draco found out that it tightened things low in his stomach. He leaned forwards, but Potter was too far away to touch. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice the motion Draco had made. He simply shook his head and looked at him with eyes that had a hint of fondness in them.

"That _is _different," he said. "Most people try to go through the Weasleys to get at me. Going through me to get at them is new. I'm glad that you give them credit for existing and having an effect, instead of trying to dismiss them as people who don't matter. They _are_ war heroes, after all." He took what Draco thought was only the second sip of his chocolate.

"You didn't hear the most important phrase in that sentence, I see," Draco said. He didn't have to go far to find a sneer. Potter didn't seem to mind. Maybe it comforted him, seeing Draco appear the way he thought Draco should appear. He cocked his head.

"Excuse me for thinking it was 'wanted to take you away from the Weasleys,'" he said. "That's certainly the one that matters to me."

"It was _at first_," Draco said. "Now I've seen more of you. You're better than they are. You're more courageous than they are. You deserve better than to put up with their stupid insults and Weasley's stupid stunts for the rest of your life."

Potter shook his head, his smile faint. "I see that you haven't improved in subtlety since we were at school, Malfoy," he said.

"Tell me why." Draco could get used to someone who smiled like that. He wanted to see how it would taste against his mouth, but, of course, Potter was too cautious of him at the moment for that.

"Because you can't come up with anything other than the same complaint you've always used," Potter said quietly. He set down the cup of chocolate on the table beside the chair and rose to his feet. "You want me to believe that I'm too good for the Weasleys. That means you think I have some estimation of myself as being better than them—better than anybody in particular. I _don't_. You'd think you would have realized this by now." He gave Draco a pitying glance and started walking towards the door.

Draco panicked. That could be the only reason why he bolted to his feet and called out, "Potter, wait!"

He got a single patient, wide-eyed green glance, the same kind Potter had given the Weasel after he nearly crashed the broom he was riding. His words tumbled on, because he wouldn't let Potter put him on the same level as the Weasleys, he _wouldn't_. "You have to admit that some people are better than others. Where there are differences, there will be inequalities." That had been one of his father's favorite sayings.

"Sure," Potter said. "Some people are more intelligent than others, or more creative, or more thoughtful. Some are more pointy." He gave Draco's face a glance of quiet amusement, and Draco had to stop himself from reaching up to feel at his cheekbones. He was _not _pointy, and he knew it. "But there's a difference between that and believing that you're somehow deserving of more courtesy or justice because of those things. That's what I don't believe, and that's what you're trying to get me to believe. It's not going to work."

God, he sounded like a parent explaining to a child why he couldn't have a coveted toy. Draco hated the comparison. He gritted his teeth together and struck back. "You have to admit that someone can be honored above another person for their talents. Or would you agree that Weasley is equal to you as an Auror?"

From Potter's stillness, Draco knew he had at least found a weak point. He concealed his smile. In truth, he should have seen that it was a weak point before, since Potter had taken so much time to consider that memory of Weasley bragging that he was the better Auror. But it was so hard to tell with this shifting, changing, metamorphosing Potter that he hadn't been sure.

"Ron is a good Auror," Potter said at last.

"But your equal?"

Potter's nostrils flared. "Of course," he said harshly. "I would never say that he didn't deserve admiration and awards and backup from someone else because he wasn't me."

"That's not the kind of thing I'm talking about," said Draco. He reminded himself to be patient. Potter would be enough reward for his patience, if he could just keep calm. "Do you think your superiors should trust him as much? Who should they send into a situation that contains hostages and Dark magic, him or you?"

Potter sneered at him again. "That shows your ignorance of the Ministry more than it does anything else, Malfoy," he said. "Aurors always work in teams. They wouldn't choose between us. They would expect us to act together."

Draco opened his mouth to reply, but Potter ploughed on, his face averted from Draco's now. "And you're ignorant about plenty of other things, too. Why have I stood here talking to you for this long? Ginny's right. You deserve nothing more than my silence." He turned away again.

"Strange that you had to call on her words instead of your own," Draco said to his back.

Potter kept walking.

"Have you thought about how many of their words you believe? Have you thought about whether you think that you're slow because _they _said it, not because you actually are?" Draco paused for breath, in part because Potter was opening the front door now and Draco's breath was coming short in fear. "Have you thought about whether you resent their jokes because you want to think differently of yourself, but you don't dare?"

Potter gave him a single look before he went out the door.

But Draco felt free to lean back and chuckle, because no one gave looks that intense or ugly to someone they intended simply to discount.

_He'll come back._

*

Ginny knew what the slam of the front door meant. Harry was in one of his _moods_. She carefully finished patting sweat from her forehead with the towel before she opened the bathroom door and stepped out to confront him.

To her surprise, he wasn't pacing back and forth in the drawing room and waiting for the conversation. Instead, he was out in the back, casting spells with deadly efficiency at a series of stone targets he'd set up near the Quidditch Pitch a long time ago but rarely used now. He said that being an Auror gave him enough practice of that sort.

"Harry?" Ginny called, but he didn't hear her over the explosions he was creating. Bits of stone flew everywhere, some of them pinging off the windows. Ginny ducked her head and grimaced. She knew they had wards on their house to prevent anything from shattering, but it still didn't make her comfortable when Harry did that.

_He just doesn't _think _about things all the time, _she thought wistfully as she walked across the grass towards him. _Of course, I don't, either, but I would appreciate it if he told me when I was being thoughtless. He doesn't appreciate it._

"Harry," she said quietly when she was closer to him, with the firm tone that was usually good about getting him to pay attention.

Harry gave himself a little shake and turned to face her. Ginny set her jaw and refused to step back when she saw the wildness in his eyes. Harry would never hurt her. The power bulging and rippling around him, making the air heavy and wet as a drenched cloak, was just his magic's way of expressing itself.

It frightened her, but he had never hurt her. She trusted him to keep that promise.

"Ginny?" Harry spoke in a voice that seemed to come from a long distance, as though he'd forgotten who she was for a little while. That alarmed Ginny more than anything else that had happened so far. He dragged an arm across his forehead, mopping off the sweat, and then looked at the back of his hand blankly.

Ginny shook her head. She sometimes felt the same way when she came back from an intense Quidditch practice, but at least she knew it was adrenaline and excitement that made her feel as though she was in another world. Harry was being driven by anger, and she was increasingly concerned about what could have got him so angry.

"What happened?" she asked, putting a hand on his arm now that it didn't seem as if he would shake her off.

"That _fucker_ Malfoy."

Ginny peered at him, not sure whether to be more relieved or wary. On the one hand, Malfoy shouldn't have been able to cause this much pain and frustration in Harry, not if he was back to ignoring Malfoy the way he had promised he was. On the other hand, it implied that he didn't believe whatever Malfoy had told him about why he'd sent that memory.

Not that Ginny really thought Harry was disloyal or looking for reasons to distrust his best friends. Of course not. But…sometimes it seemed as though he'd never forgiven Ron for leaving him alone for a while during the Triwizard Tournament and the Horcrux hunt. Even though they were childish errors, even though Ron had come back both times, they were like festering wounds in Harry's mind that had never healed.

"What did he say?" she asked quietly.

"That he despises you as much as he ever did." Harry turned towards her and caught her hands in a crushing grip, staring down at her almost desperately. "Ginny, he's trying to torment me to torment _you_. Why can't he let whatever grudge he has against your family _go_?"

Ginny smiled in spite of herself. Harry hadn't grown up in their world and didn't understand the intensity of pure-blood grudges, how they usually mattered only to people who were dead and gone but had to be kept up anyway, out of respect to those dead and gone people. She squeezed his hands. "For the same reason we can't let it go," she said calmly. _Yes, it's going to be fine. _"We should do it if he does it, right?"

"But you're not going around trying to discredit him in the same way he is you." Harry crowded close to her, as if he were going to shield her with his body from the evils of the world. Ginny found the behavior sweet, although only in moments when she didn't need protection; then she wanted acknowledgment from Harry that she could stand on her own.

"No, we're not," Ginny said. "But I don't think that's a difference in our attitudes towards the feud so much as it is a difference in our upbringing. We had kind and compassionate parents. He didn't."

Harry stood still for a minute. Then he said, as if struck by something, "I do think his parents loved him. I told you about how his mother saved my life because I told her where Malfoy—Draco, I mean—was."

Ginny sighed. This was one of those subtleties that it seemed Harry just didn't understand. "Yes, but what I mean is that they don't care for anyone _beyond _their family. If they did, then his mother would have lied to save you whether or not you could tell her anything about her son. They're not compassionate in general."

"No," Harry muttered.

He was quiet for the rest of the evening, but Ginny didn't mind. It was one of those evenings when she wanted to be quiet herself, and read sometimes, and lean on his shoulder sometimes, and talk dreamily of what would happen after their marriage, and cuddle instead of make love.

*

"I don't want to do this right now, Hermione."

Draco sighed with soft triumph. He hadn't even "arranged" to be in the same place as Potter and his friends this time, and he certainly hadn't arranged to put that note of agitation in Potter's voice—much as he would have liked to think it was connected to his little conversation with Potter a few days prior. He rose to his feet and peered out through the curtain that separated the private room at the back of the Glass House restaurant from the main dining area.

Potter stood next to a table in the center, his knuckles white where they gripped the chair, his face distressed. Granger was watching him with the same kind of exasperation that Draco had seen her use when the Boy Wonder and her boyfriend didn't do their homework properly.

_She should remember that this isn't Hogwarts anymore, _Draco thought idly as he watched.

"When are we going to do it?" Granger asked quietly. "You were the one who wanted to practice, Harry. I'm just making sure that we do." She pushed a curl of hair behind her ear, looking harassed. Draco vaguely recalled hearing that she was some sort of powerful, important lawyer now, and she looked it, given the rich, sleek robes she was wearing and the fact that her hair actually behaved. "You know Ginny will be disappointed if you drop food all over your wedding robes."

Draco blinked and then had to hide a grin in his sleeve which might otherwise have turned into a loud laugh. _She's teaching him how to _eat?

"I'm not—this isn't—" Potter bowed his head and swore softly. Draco couldn't hear all the words, but the ones he could hear were impressive, and so were the rest, judging from Granger's frown.

"I do want to be clean and look nice for Ginny at the wedding," Potter said at last, looking up. "But I didn't ask you for a _lesson_. I just mentioned it to you. You were the one who decided that we needed to _practice._" His nostrils flared, and Draco saw the view of things around him briefly distort. Draco sighed. That would be his magic shimmering out of control. _So delicious. _

"You need help," Granger said bluntly. "We don't have time to hire someone to do it, and frankly, I don't trust that you would show up on time for the lesson if we did. So I'm going to be the one to do it. Sit down and put your napkin on." She was already moving towards her own chair, drawing it out in a graceful, economical motion that Draco couldn't help but admire.

Potter's hands gripped his chair as if it were a weapon he was going to swing to defend himself. "No," he said.

The power in his voice weakened Draco's knees. He licked his lips and held as still as he could. For no reason in the world would he be denied his view of the scene he knew would happen next.

Granger paused and stared at him. "What?" she asked at last, in a tone of voice that said she couldn't believe anyone would dare defy her.

"I don't want to," Potter said, his jaw jutting out. It was a good look on him, Draco thought. He should refuse to do what people wanted more often. Why not? He certainly had the power to get away with it, and he ought to be able to exercise his own desires some of the time. "I'll eat as neatly as I can at the wedding, and that's all anyone can ask of me."

Granger gazed at him with a softened face. "I know you'll try, Harry," she said. "And I know that this wedding has everyone on edge. I'm sorry if I snapped at you. But—Ginny and Molly are concerned."

"Why?" Potter ground that word out. His magic snapped around him again, rearranging several of the panes of glass in one of the Glass Room's windows without breaking it. Draco had to shut his eyes and breathe through his mouth for a moment, or his breath would have stopped altogether.

"Because of the way that you behaved at George's wedding." Granger's gaze was piercing.

Potter flushed. "That had more to do with me getting drunk than anything else," he muttered.

"But before that," Granger said quietly, "you were spilling food on your robes. And you stained your tie. Ginny might not have told you, but it really embarrassed her, Harry. She doesn't want that to happen again."

Potter jerked his head up. He'd been staring somewhere in the middle of the table, but now he was looking at his traitorous friend again, and Draco was glad. That look suited him much better than the exaggerated expression of penance he'd adopted. At least, Draco hoped it was exaggerated, because no one should feel _that _much embarrassment over a social faux pas. Not someone like Potter, who had done the Weasleys a favor by attending their little celebration in the first place. "Why_ didn't _she tell me?" he asked. "She bloody well should have."

"She was afraid that you would get angry." Granger answered slowly, her eyes so intent that Draco was afraid she would look straight through the curtain and spot him for a moment. But no, it seemed her attention was all for Potter. "Start yelling, the way you do sometimes."

"I would _never _hurt her." Potter's magic dimmed as he spoke, and Draco knew he was struggling to get better control of himself for Granger's sake.

"I know that," Granger said. She paused again and then reached out and put a hand on Potter's shoulder. Draco's skin shuddered as if he were the one being touched. "But I don't know if Ginny knows it."

Potter shook his head. "So is this about me spilling food on my shirt and embarrassing her, or is this about Ginny being afraid of me?"

"That's something you'll have to discuss with her," Granger said. "But in the meantime, it really would be nice if you sat down and worked with me on this, Harry. We both took time out of our jobs to do this."

_Don't do it, _Draco thought, trying to send waves of mental strength to Potter. _It doesn't matter how nice she's being right now or how understandable her motives might be. She still wanted you to do this ridiculous thing merely to appease the woman who's too afraid of you and your magnificent power to talk to you herself._

Potter seemed to have heard Draco. He straightened his shoulders, bit his lip, and shook his head again. "No, Hermione. You can send Ginny to me if you want, so I can be the one to explain my decision. But I think it's about time that I started thinking more about what I want than about what the Weasleys want to make me into."

Granger stared at him with her mouth slightly open, then laughed. Draco smiled, feeling as though he'd swallowed a mugful of mead when he watched Potter's eyes narrow. _I think that you've just lost most of the ground you gained with him, Granger. _

"That's—that's not what they're trying to do at all," Granger said, when she recovered. "They say things sometimes, but they don't mean them."

"Ginny meant this enough to ask you to come and talk to me about it," Potter said evenly. "She meant it enough that she didn't dare approach me herself. And if they can be excused because they're under stress from the wedding and everything else right now, then surely I can be." He put his chin up and stood there looking more wise and elegant and mature than Draco thought he could have looked in years.

Granger grumbled something under her breath and checked a watch that hung from the front of her robe. "I'm late already," she muttered and then looked up at Potter. "Listen, Harry," she said. "We'll talk about this later. But you've got to stop thinking that because Ron betrayed you a few times in the place, and because he sometimes has a big mouth, that everything is going wrong. Ginny told me about that memory Malfoy sent. Who are you going to believe, him or someone who's been by your side for years?"

Potter hesitated, to Draco's fury. "It does sound simple when you put it that way," he muttered.

_No._ Draco prepared to move. Even at the cost of revealing himself, he had to counter the damage that Granger had just inflicted to his goal.

"We'll talk about it later," Granger repeated, gave Potter a quick kiss on the cheek, and then scuttled out of the restaurant. A waiter peered past her timidly, apparently wondering whether Potter still wanted lunch. Potter rubbed his cheek and stared down at the table as though he had forgotten what one was.

Draco waited just a moment to make sure Granger wasn't returning, and then flung the curtain back. "Come join me, Potter," he called.

Potter jolted. Then he glanced over his shoulder, and his smile was less surprised than wry. "Why didn't I expect to see you here?" he asked. "I should have. You seem to make a point of appearing in my life lately."

Draco ignored this vague muttering, even though he thought Potter should have thanked him. Draco was there in time to stop him from making mistakes, after all. "Come join me," he said, more softly, and extended a hand as though he was beckoning Potter in from the cold.

Potter examined him long enough that Draco imagined he would walk away after all. Then he nodded slightly and strode across the room to duck under the curtain.

For a moment, Draco was close enough to Potter that his skin sizzled and saliva filled his mouth. Potter didn't seem to notice. He sat down at the table and looked around the private room with a slow, impressed blink. Draco attempted to look at it with a stranger's eyes, to take new and unanticipated pleasure in the cleanliness of the tiled walls and the moving portraits of famous wizards from the past.

"Nice," Potter said briefly, and fixed an eye on him. "So tell me what you're doing here."

"Originally, I was simply here to eat lunch." Draco took his place across from Potter, trying to control his excited quivering and largely failing. _I want him. _The sentiment, strengthened by Granger's words, seemed to surround his head like an iron band, pressing his skin against his skull. "But then I saw you, and overheard the conversation that you were having with _her._"

Potter's smile turned dark for a moment. "And you still can't expect me to betray my friends for you, Malfoy." His hand tightened on the arm of his chair as if he would shove it away from the table and stand.

"_Betrayal's _such an ugly word," Draco said. He watched as his plate appeared in front of him, though no food filled it. He only had to speak the name of the dish he wanted, but he hadn't chosen yet. Besides, it would probably take the Glass Room's magic a bit of time to adjust since he now had a guest. Draco looked up and into Potter's eyes with a leisurely motion of his head. "I much prefer _considering better options._"

"I have friends," Potter said quietly. "I have a fiancée. You've told me what place in my life you want to fill, but there isn't a hole for you to step into."

"Unless you make one." Draco was growing tired of dancing around the subject and suspected he might as well say it straight out.

"And why would I want to?" Potter's voice was soft and slow, much like the tone Draco had chosen to coax him. He was leaning his elbows on the table—Draco winced, but decided he could ignore this in pursuit of larger things—and examining Draco with a deep gaze.

"You're interested," Draco said. "You have to be. You would have told me to fuck off otherwise." He looked at the plate and the equally empty glass. "Duck with orange sauce," he said. "Seasoned potatoes. Elf-made wine." A spark of magic raced around the table, and the food came into view like a beautiful illusion.

"Aren't you hungry, Potter?" he asked, picking up his fork and suspending it over the duck and the potatoes. Potter licked his lips, and Draco smiled, choosing to take that as a comment on more than just the food.

"I am," Potter said. "But I'm not sure that I trust food that just _appears._"

Draco shook his head in annoyance. "It's been prepared by the hands of house-elves like Hogwarts food, Potter."

"Why house-elves?" Potter asked quickly. "Why can't humans do it themselves?"

Draco cut a bite of duck free and chewed it slowly, refusing to let himself get angry. Potter was trying to start an argument, he knew, to herd Draco away from the point of this conversation. "Because house-elves are the best at what they do," he said at last. "The Glass Room prides itself on providing the very best food to its guests."

Potter stared at his plate and glass with slightly dazed eyes, as though a new world of possibilities was opening in front of him. "Soft white chicken with rice on the side," he said quietly. "Brown fish that's crumbling and so soft it falls apart when you touch it. Chocolate spiced with nutmeg."

Draco smiled slightly as Potter's dishes filled. "You have a fondness for that chocolate, don't you, Potter?"

Potter ate instead of answering him, and Draco started doing the same thing. It was a pleasure in more ways than the vicious pleasure that came with knowing Potter was with _him _and not the Weasleys, which Draco hadn't expected. Potter had manners of a kind and a trick of closing his eyes when his mouth was full and he was savoring the food that made Draco _have _to watch his face.

Once Potter opened his eyes and caught him at it, but Draco refused to flush at the knowing smile. Potter's actions compelled him. It wasn't fair to blame Draco for that.

When most of the meal was gone and Potter was nursing his chocolate, Draco pushed his plate slightly aside to let the restaurant's magic know he was done. The check appeared next to his hands, but he didn't bother to look at it yet. The Glass Room hardly cared how long he lingered when he was paying them so well.

"Aren't you tired?" he asked Potter.

"Define tired." Potter looked away from the painting he'd been contemplating and back at Draco, his face much calmer than before.

"Tired of other people ordering you around," Draco said. "Tired of people thinking they own you. Tired of being ignored by your friends, or treated with narrow-minded pettiness when they notice you." He hesitated, then took a risk. He didn't know for _certain _that Potter felt this way, but he had a good idea. If Potter hadn't, there was no reason for him to share a meal with Draco after Draco had told him he wanted him. "Tired of rushing towards a wedding that you don't seem to care about."

Potter's hands tightened on his glass. He said nothing for so long that Draco once again thought he might leave the table.

Then Potter lifted his head and said, simply, "Yes."

Draco exhaled hard, surprised to find himself trembling. He reached across the table, letting his hand rest lightly on Potter's wrist. Potter looked at it with some curiosity.

"But there's nothing to be done about it now," Potter said, with a slight shrug. "The invitations are sent. The decorations are ordered. I know which robes I'm going to wear. I even bought Ginny a ring." He offered Draco a twisted smile, as if he was remembering that moment at Janus Jewelry when he had walked back into Draco's life. "I'll have to live with this wedding and everything that comes after it as best I can. Besides, most of the time my friends aren't so bad. I can't throw away years of friendship and a relationship with Ginny because—"

"Coward," Draco said.

It was the one word he could think of that would get Potter's attention, but it was also the word that expressed what he honestly thought at the moment. Potter stopped speaking and stared at Draco, color leaving his face.

Then the color came back in a rush and he said through gritted teeth, "I _beg _your fucking pardon?"

"You didn't put up with the Dark Lord coming after you and trying to kill you," Draco said mockingly. He tightened his grip on Potter's wrist when he would have pulled away. Potter grabbed Draco's hand in return and crushed down, but Draco refused to show his discomfort. They were wrestling, and as long as that happened, then Potter couldn't ignore him. "You didn't stand around and say nothing when I taunted your best friends, or when other Slytherins did it. You didn't let Umbridge get away with what she did at Hogwarts. Why are you letting _them _get away with it? Why are you so resigned to a marriage that you don't want?"

"They're my friends," Potter said, with a cut-off motion of his head that reminded Draco of a horse being forced into harness. "Not my enemies."

"That makes it all the more urgent that you stand up for yourself." Draco sneered at him. "Since _friends _are apt to think they can walk all over you if you don't put them in their place."

"I'm equal to my friends, Malfoy—"

"No, you're taking up the inferior position when you let them trample you." Draco leaned in. "Do you want to marry the She-Weasel or not?"

"There's no reason for me _not _to want to," Potter hissed at him.

"That's not good enough." Draco shook his head, glad for the smirk that played around his lips. It made Potter stare at him in fascination so intense Draco couldn't believe loathing was behind it. Frustration, perhaps, but that was because Draco was the one pushing Potter to face up to what he would have preferred to ignore. "You need a positive reason, not a negative one. Do you want to marry her?"

"None of your fucking business, Malfoy!" Potter attempted to wrench free again, but Draco had been prepared for that and brought both of his hands into play, straining to hold Potter's arm flat on the table.

"It is," he said. "Because I chose to make it so. Because I was the one who bloody noticed. Because I'm the one who wants you to stand up for yourself." He leaned close to Potter, until Potter's breath raked across his lips. "And you don't have a good enough reason why you aren't doing that," he whispered.

Potter snorted at him, looking as maddened as a bull. Draco refused to allow himself to worry about that. He tightened his hand and raised an eyebrow instead. _Attack me, Potter. Run away if you have to. That way, I know my words will linger in your head later, and you can't escape them._

"I don't have to stay here and be insulted," Potter said suddenly, and rolled his shoulders, tugging his hands away from Draco with a movement Draco assumed they had taught him in the Aurors and which he had to admit he would have liked to learn. He cast a handful of Galleons on the table without even asking to look at the check and stepped towards the curtain.

"Running away?" Draco breathed.

He received a single furious glance that made his groin ache. There was so much _concentrated _passion in that one look. Draco couldn't imagine what it would be like to have all of it focused on him, to be the one who caused Potter's passion and the person who got to enjoy the consequences of it.

Potter stared at Draco for a moment, eyes widening. Draco thought he had probably seen Draco's thoughts in his eyes. He swallowed—Draco saw his throat bob—and then turned and raced through the curtain as if a dragon was after him.

_Maybe one is, _Draco thought, giving a leisurely stretch as he picked up the check to ascertain the price of his meal. _I might not have wings or a breath of fire, but I think my weapons are keener yet._

*

Ginny stepped into the Glass Room and frowned when she realized that Harry was gone. Hermione had sounded so sure he'd stand right here until Ginny came to talk to him.

And Ginny needed to talk to him, Hermione had told her, her eyes wide and concerned. Harry didn't understand the request for him to brush up on etiquette at all. He was going to take it the wrong way. Ginny needed to speak with him honestly about her fear and about the way she wanted him to behave at the wedding.

_He's not here, _Ginny realized a moment later, _but his magic seems to indicate that he was here just a minute ago. I would have passed him if he was walking to the Apparition point, though. _The Glass Room was the only open building on a small, select side street, and its wards prevented Apparition except at the corner.

She caught sight of a colorful curtain that covered the back of the room and wandered towards it. It didn't seem as though Harry would be there. The restaurant had that deserted air she'd expected; Hermione had arranged with the management to meet Harry there privately so they wouldn't be besieged for autographs during lunch. Harry could have been alone by standing in the middle of the main room. But maybe he'd thought that was still too public, given the wide windows, and decided to duck behind the curtain for a bit of privacy.

She heard the sound of cups hitting the table and forks scraping on plates before she drew the curtain back. She paused, embarrassed. She didn't want to interrupt someone's lunch. But if Harry was here, now was the perfect time to talk to him without anyone else overhearing.

In the end, she put her eye to a gap in the curtain and peeked.

Harry sat facing her and eating, but he wasn't alone. She didn't need to see his face to recognize Draco bloody Malfoy.

Ginny felt her fists clench, and she stood perfectly still. What was _going on? _Why was Harry meeting Malfoy, of all people, and why here? Ginny _knew _that he had originally come here to meet Hermione. Had he agreed to it in the first place because he had planned out some rendezvous with Malfoy?

Nothing made sense.

Then they pushed their plates away and started talking, and Ginny felt as if she had fallen even further into some twisted world with windows that looked out on a landscape she didn't know or understand.

"Aren't you tired?" Malfoy asked Harry. His voice was low, and teasing, and intimate, and the way his hand trembled made it look as if he'd like to reach out and touch Harry. Ginny felt her mouth twist. Was he _seducing _Harry? Of all the ugly acts she'd suspected him of, that seemed the least likely.

"Define tired." Harry turned to face Draco, and his face was calm, making Ginny release a shaky breath. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe she was imagining Harry's susceptibility. She _had _to be. Harry wasn't bent. He'd never imagined things like that, either. He would have told her if they had. They had no secrets from each other.

"Tired of other people ordering you around," Malfoy said. He seemed to think what he said was clever, or words that Harry hadn't heard a thousand times before from all sorts of people. "Tired of people thinking they own you. Tired of being ignored by your friends, or treated with narrow-minded pettiness when they notice you. Tired of rushing towards a wedding that you don't seem to care about."

Ginny felt her mouth fall open. The worst part of it was that Harry didn't immediately speak up and contradict him. He seemed content to stare at his glass instead and turn it around in circles, squeaking softly on the table.

Ginny swallowed. The silence was like a tunnel that enveloped her, a tunnel that she was falling down.

_Harry?_

When he finally did reply, it was to say the worst thing Ginny could have heard from him just then.

"Yes."

Malfoy reached out and clasped Harry's wrist. Ginny had to put her hand over her face so that she could continue watching through her fingers.

"But there's nothing to be done about it now," Harry said, with a massive shrug.

With no _enthusiasm._ As if he didn't care. As if he was _resigned._

"The invitations are sent. The decorations are ordered. I know which robes I'm going to wear. I even bought Ginny a ring." He smiled as if that was horrible, and Ginny's heart rose in rebellion. _I'm not a _thing _that he's had to buy. I'm not a kitten clinging to his robe. _"I'll have to live with this wedding and everything that comes after it as best I can. Besides, most of the time my friends aren't so bad. I can't throw away years of friendship and a relationship with Ginny because—"

"Coward," Malfoy said.

_Oh, thank God. _Harry couldn't stand to be called a coward. Now, surely, he would give up this insane notion of sitting there and listening to Malfoy, wherever he'd got it from.

Yes. Harry turned red and said words that made Ginny want to burst through the curtain and kiss him. "I _beg _your fucking pardon?"

"You didn't put up with the Dark Lord coming after you and trying to kill you," Malfoy said mockingly. He was holding Harry's hand so that he couldn't stand, but Ginny thought Harry didn't need to reach down and hold his wrist in return. "You didn't stand around and say nothing when I taunted your best friends, or when other Slytherins did it. You didn't let Umbridge get away with what she did at Hogwarts. Why are you letting _them _get away with it? Why are you so resigned to a marriage that you don't want?"

"They're my friends," Harry said, and he spoke as though he'd tasted something sour. "Not my enemies."

_Yes, we're your friends, _Ginny thought. She wanted to rip through the curtain for different reasons now. _And we don't deserve to be treated like this._

"That makes it all the more urgent that you stand up for yourself." Malfoy sneered. Ginny pictured him prancing around his poncey house sneering all the time, doing nothing else, and felt marginally better. "Since _friends _are apt to think that they can walk all over you if you don't put them in their place."

"I'm equal to my friends, Malfoy—" Harry's voice was too soft.

"No, you're taking up the inferior position when you let them trample you." Malfoy leaned across the table. For a moment, Ginny had the mad vision of him spitting poison in Harry's eyes like a cobra. "Do you want to marry the She-Weasel or not?"

"There's no reason for me _not _to want to," Harry hissed.

There was a block in Ginny's throat stopping her breath. _He didn't defend me. He didn't act like he even heard the insult._

"That's not good enough." Malfoy was smirking, from the sound of it. Why couldn't Harry wake up from his daydream and realize this was his _enemy, _the same idiot he'd fought and hexed and driven away from him all through school? "You need a positive reason, not a negative one. Do you want to marry her?"

"None of your fucking business, Malfoy!" And Harry was trying to rise, the way he should have at the beginning of the conversation, just like he should have said those words at the beginning of the conversation, but Malfoy was holding him down, and God, if Ginny had only walked in at _this _point in their fight, she never would have known how much Harry loathed her.

"It is," Malfoy said. Ginny had to blink and come out of her thoughts before she could realize that he was saying her and Harry's marriage was somehow his business, and get furious in a new direction. "Because I chose to make it so. Because I was the one who bloody noticed. Because I'm the one who wants you to stand up for yourself." He leaned in as if he was going to kiss Harry, and Harry didn't punch him. That hurt, too. "And you don't have a good enough reason why you aren't doing that," Malfoy whispered.

"I don't have to stay here and be insulted," Harry said, and pulled away from Malfoy with an Auror move. Ginny watched through a daze of tears as he cast Galleons on the table and turned away. He could have done that from the beginning. He could have got away at any time. The only reason for him to stay there and listen to Malfoy was if he _wanted _to.

"Running away?" Malfoy breathed.

Ginny didn't hear what Harry answered, if anything. She had to scramble out of the way before Harry could see her standing there. She Disillusioned herself hastily and leaned against the wall, hoping that Harry's Auror instincts wouldn't kick in. It was true, he had no _reason _to think she was here and had overheard, but he had the ability to notice small things sometimes and add those clues together into conclusions criminals didn't want him to reach.

Ginny had never thought that she would put herself, mentally, in the same class as the criminals Harry was fighting.

Harry glared back at Malfoy, she saw that much, before he stormed out of the restaurant. Ginny stood where she was and shut her eyes. She could have looked past the curtain to see what Malfoy was doing, but she thought it was probably only smirking and toasting himself anyway.

Besides, she didn't want Malfoy to know she'd heard the confrontation. It would probably make him feel triumphant.

Harry was good enough at that. Ginny didn't need to give him the competition.

No, she had someone else to confront.

When she was sure that Harry had left and that Malfoy wasn't about to emerge and trail after him, Ginny exited herself. The Disillusionment Charm meant no one could see her, but she chose to walk with her head up and her feet carefully and precisely placed anyway, because it helped to steel her for what lay ahead.


	3. Chapter 3

Draco stirred slowly. He had been having a most interesting and involving dream about Potter, and he saw no reason to leave it. But an intrusive squeaking sounded in his ears no matter how he tried to barricade himself against it, and in the end he opened his eyes and sat up in bed.

One of his house-elves bowed to him, clutching its ears. "Roddy is sorry to be disturbing Master Malfoy," it squeaked. "But Master Malfoy left orders that Master Harry Potter was to be admitted no matter the hour, and—"

"Yes, Roddy, that's fine," Draco said absently, with a glance out the window. From the darkness, it _was _as late as it felt. He shook his head and Summoned the green silk dressing gown that he'd left draped over the chair when he went to sleep. "Escort Potter to the Golden Room and keep him there until I arrive. Offer him refreshments if he asks for them."

Roddy bowed and vanished. Draco took his time adjusting his robe and brushing his hair in the mirror. Let Potter stew a bit. It was an ample reward for interrupting Draco's rest.

Then he realized that he was practically preening for Potter. He growled and took the steps down to the Golden Room, on the second floor, two at a time.

Once, the Golden Room had been where the Lord of the Manor would entertain a select circle of guests. Now Draco rarely used it, and his mother, who spent most of her time traveling, saw no reason to, but the house-elves kept it up anyway. The walls had the soft sheen of pure gold, and the mirrors inset exactly halfway between floor and ceiling on all four sides helped multiply the impression.

Potter was on his feet instead of in one of the comfortable chairs before the fireplace, staring at the sole portrait in the room. It was more of a portrait _frame_, as Lucius's image preferred to accompany Narcissa in a portable picture. Nonetheless, Potter seemed fascinated by the bookshelves, blazing fire, sleek shining tables, and plate of heaped fruit just visible in the background.

"Can I help you?" Draco asked, stepping through the door. Potter stiffened, but didn't move at first. Instead, he traced the wall beside the frame with a finger. He was wise enough not to touch the frame itself, Draco noted.

"You can tell me why you decided to intrude into my life and make a mess of it." Potter's voice was faint and far away.

"I never could have if you didn't have your own private doubts," Draco replied calmly. He kept his voice soft. That would disguise his eagerness.

Potter dropped his hand back to his side and then spun around to scowl at him. "Everything was going _fine_," he snapped. "My biggest problem in life was choosing a ring that would suit Ginny until you had to _interfere._"

"And I repeat that that's not true," Draco said. His heart was in his throat at the sight of the way Potter's eyes narrowed. He didn't intend to show it. "The words I spoke to you couldn't have made an impact unless you let them."

"Hermione says things like that, too, and they are such _bollocks_." Potter stepped towards him. "I want to know what you're going to do to fix it."

"How can I unless I know what the problem is?" Draco cocked his head to the side and ran his eyes appreciatively over Potter's body. From the way Potter flushed, he'd caught Draco at it.

"Ginny heard us talking." Potter's voice was flat and ugly. "She said that I obviously never loved her, or I would have spoken up and defended her when we talked this afternoon more than I did. She says that if I want you as a lover and to be free of the marriage, then that's fine, but I'm not going to have both you and her."

Draco felt like laughing. He was flying, light and free. Weasley had done exactly as he had expected her to. She wasn't, after all, secure enough in Potter's affections to view a challenge with ridicule. She'd let her temper get the better of her, and in the end, she would be the one to suffer for it.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment of consideration. "You said that I had to fix the problem, but I don't _see _a problem here. Only something that's finally happening the way it was supposed to after long years of meddling."

Potter sprang forwards and grabbed Draco, pinning his shoulders to the wall. Draco wriggled so that Potter would grip and hold him tighter. God, this was exciting. He wanted to know what it was like to lie under Potter and watch that face flushing and changing from one emotion to the other. He hoped it wouldn't be long before he could find out.

"You can't tell me that you've wanted me for years, Malfoy." Potter's hiss was long and deadly.

"Of course not," Draco said. "But I wanted you as a friend, and I couldn't be that as long as the Weasleys held you captive. And then recently, I decided I wanted you. That probably would have happened a long time ago, too, without Weasley in the picture."

"This is mad." Potter let his head fall forwards, until only a few breaths of space separated his scar and Draco's shoulder. "You don't—you can't just decide that you want me out of thin air and start trying to take me, Malfoy."

"Mmm." Draco sniffed. The scent of Potter's skin was sweaty and salty and _interesting._ "That's where you're wrong, Potter. I _do _want you, and I'm not overly concerned about how or why. I do what I like because it seems good to me, and only hold off if it could have negative consequences that outweigh the pleasure. I think most people are the same way. It's only you noble heroes who seek out all these metaphysical _reasons _and try to lay down paths of principle that you don't want anyone to deviate from. If you let yourself live a little more, pursue what you wanted and not what you think you ought to want, then maybe you would know more about it and also be able to choose what you _do _desire."

Potter stared at him. Draco wanted to lick the skin beneath his eyes, but he was still too far away from Potter's face for that.

"You're lying," Potter whispered. "You said you went after me to get revenge on the Weasleys. You _said _it."

"At first, yes," Draco said. "And then I wanted you. And now I can have you. I'm not inclined to question things that are going the way I want." He opened his mouth and waited, because surely not even someone as dim as Potter could mistake the invitation to a kiss that Draco was offering.

Potter released him and stepped away. Draco sighed as his heels jolted on the floor. It seemed he would have to wait for a while yet, and that was horrible.

"It doesn't make sense," Potter whispered. "How can I be so unsure about my marriage with Ginny? I was in love with her. It was what I wanted."

"And now it's not," Draco said. He couldn't understand why this was so hard. Weasley had sent him away herself. What more warrant to do as he liked did even someone like Potter need?

Potter stared back at him doubtfully. "I'm not bent," he said. "I don't know if I want you."

"Then figure it out," Draco said. "Though I think it says something that you keep coming back to me in spite of everything, and that you didn't run in horror when I first told you what I desired." He edged closer, while Potter stood there with wide eyes that only saw the inside of himself.

"But there's no _reason _for it," he muttered again.

"There doesn't have to be," Draco responded, and reached out to put his hand on Potter's shoulder.

Potter shuddered beneath the touch, but he still acted as if he was seeing something other than what was in front of him. He reached up and covered Draco's hand with his own. Draco waited for him to push it away or clasp it tighter. He did neither, only stood there looking at Draco, his forehead wrinkled slightly.

"You need something to change your mind," Draco said, his voice shaking with eagerness. He didn't care. Let Potter think he was weak. He didn't _care_. He had forgotten—or perhaps he'd never known—what it was like to be this close to someone he truly wanted, the heat between them making the small hairs on his arms rise, their eyes larger than the rest of the world. "You need something to help you make your decision."

"Yes, maybe—"

From the tone of Potter's voice, Draco just knew he was about to start another rambling soliloquy. He didn't think he could take that. He leaned forwards, lifted his other hand into place on Potter's other shoulder, and pressed his lips firmly against his.

Potter stood utterly still. Then his eyes shut and he hummed in the back of his throat. Draco chuckled in triumph and eased forwards, swirling his tongue deeper. There was no need for wild plunges and thrusts. (At least, not yet). Let Potter have the time to ease slowly into a new experience.

Potter's mouth tasted _dusky._ There was no other way that Draco could describe it. It made him think of twilight and stars and bonfires burning on the horizon as evening came down, which was strange. The fire in Potter's eyes so often reminded him of full sunlight, and Potter himself seemed to belong to the day.

Although, what if that was only what everyone else thought? What if Draco had been taken in the by the same mask that Potter wore around his friends all the time, the one that said he was fine with the Weasels calling him stupid?

A tunnel deeper than Potter's mouth opened ahead of him. Draco swallowed and sighed as his tongue moved under Potter's. So many things to find out. So many things to learn. Right now, he wanted to know if Potter liked to have his cheeks licked or not—

Potter's hands shot out, gripping Draco's shoulders and holding him still. Draco drew his head back slowly, to show Potter that he wouldn't be hurried by someone who couldn't even admit his own desires yet. Then he opened his eyes with an equally slow flutter and handed Potter a languorous sigh.

Potter wasn't panting, but only because his breaths were too deep for that. Controlled, Draco thought with a slight smile. He looked at Potter's red cheeks and shaking hands and trembling jaw, and thought he had never seen a man fighting so hard to restrain himself.

"I think that your body's decided before your mind," Draco said brightly.

Potter shoved him then. Draco staggered a few steps, but managed to retain his smile. If Potter had really been disgusted with him, Draco knew he would have fallen. He licked his lips and inclined his head. "Are you going to listen to it?" he added.

Potter stood there with his arms down at his sides, shoulders bunched as if he intended to drive his hands into stone. Then he turned and stalked towards the door. Draco raised a curious eyebrow. He hadn't hurt him. There was no reason for him to walk that stiffly—

Unless he was hunching over something inconvenient between his legs. Draco laughed quietly.

Potter turned around and leaned his back against the door as though he needed it to support him. "Bastard," he whispered.

"I've never denied that label except in the technical sense, since I was born after my parents' marriage," Draco replied, and leaned against the wall. Potter's eyes narrowed and darkened, both at once. _Good. Let them. _After a kiss like that, Draco wasn't averse to showing he was affected, too. "You, on the other hand, still haven't done anything that would show you don't deserve the label of coward."

Potter's mouth fell open. "You—you say things like that to me," he stuttered. "And th-then you expect me to come _back_ to you?"

"Yes," Draco said. "Why not? I'm the only one who can teach you what you want."

Potter rubbed his face with one hand. "It doesn't make sense, you know."

"It's not _sense_ that we need to make." Draco let himself look down, and yes, there was the thick bulge in Potter's trousers that he had only suspected the existence of until this moment. He looked back up and didn't bother to hide the way his mouth was watering and his nostrils flaring as if he'd just sniffed something spicy.

"I don't—" Potter muttered.

"You say that a lot," Draco told him. "Why not try beginning a sentence with _I do_, and see what happens?"

Dark laughter flashed across Potter's face for a moment. "That's what I was planning on, and then you managed to dissuade me."

Draco smiled back. "Then try starting it with _I do want_," he suggested softly, and stepped forwards.

Potter drew himself up at once. "I need to see," he said, and stepped out of the Golden Room. Draco summoned Roddy with a clap and told him to escort Potter out.

He went back to bed with a smile on his face and had one of the longest and most luxurious wanks he'd ever enjoyed. He fell asleep still smiling.

Potter had said _I need to see, _not _I need to think_.

*

Ginny stood with her arms wrapped around herself and her head tilted back. Since Harry walked out the door, she hadn't moved from her post near the bedroom.

She couldn't remember most of the conversation that had resulted in Harry leaving. There were so many words there, explanations of broken promises and how she wouldn't be Harry's bit on the side.

Harry had listened with blinking eyes, and only once or twice flushed and tried to defend himself. Ginny would remember that, and what it meant. He _knew _he had been at fault. He would have protested furiously if he felt he wasn't.

What mystified her was why he hadn't tried harder to prevent himself from being at fault in the first place.

_We loved each other, _Ginny thought sadly, and finally stood back up and lowered her arms. She no longer felt as though she was going to shake apart like a badly-built house in an earthquake. _I know we did. What went wrong? Love is supposed to last, like Hermione and Ron's, not fall apart._

Someone knocked. Ginny looked up with her heart pounding triple-time, and then told herself it wouldn't be Harry. Of course not. He had no reason to come back. He had left for good, and Ginny fully expected to receive an owl in a few days asking for permission to come to the flat and clear his things out.

_There's nothing he could say that would make me change my mind, so he has no reason to come back._

"Come in," she called.

The door opened, and Harry stepped in and shut it behind him.

His face was many things—thoughtful and grave and a little frightened—but it wasn't _sorry_. Ginny narrowed her eyes and stepped towards him. Harry looked up and gave a little nod.

Like she was a _problem_ he needed to deal with before he moved on. Like she wasn't a _person_, like she didn't _matter._

"Why are you here?" Ginny asked. She was proud of how strong her voice was, how flat, like iron. She was a paragon of strength. She could stand on her own, something she thought now Harry probably forgot as often as her parents did.

_He didn't try to get them to let me fight in the war. I should have remembered that before. If he wants to chase after a man, he's welcome to it, but he never should have pretended that he wanted a _strong _woman in that case._

"Because there was something I needed to see," Harry responded. His voice was as quiet as hers, but more curious than anything else. He stepped towards her.

Ginny lifted her wand.

Harry halted and raised an eyebrow. "I only wanted to kiss you one more time," he said. "To see if there was any passion left. I thought I loved you, but—it went away so quickly. I'm wondering now if it was only passion."

Ginny flinched before she could stop herself, and she flinched with her whole body, so there was no chance of hiding it from Harry. She had never expected him to say anything so utterly—_cold_.

For her to think about the destruction of their love was one thing. But for Harry to discuss it was another, and he was doing it _academically, _the way Hermione would talk about the laws that governed house-elves.

_No_, Ginny thought then. _Hermione would talk about laws that restricted house-elves more passionately._

"I won't be used like that," she said.

"All right," Harry said. "Then I reckon I'll be a bit uncertain, but probably not a lot." There was a childish expression on his face now. He looked as though someone had offered him an early birthday present. He turned and waved his wand. Ginny tensed, but it turned out that he was only Summoning his clothes and trunk and broom and other things. He started filling the trunk with the clothes while he shrank the broom and tucked it into his pocket.

"What are you doing?" Ginny wished she could raise her voice, but her own disbelief kept it low.

"Going after what I want, for once," Harry said. He smiled at her. Ginny blinked. It wasn't a smile she had ever seen him wear, except maybe immediately after the war. Some great burden had been lifted from his shoulders and he was the better for its removal, said the grin. "I thought I couldn't want it because, well, _why_? But I reckon desire and lust don't always need reasons. We'll see how this goes. I've walked away from one relationship now. I can do it again if I need to.

"But I want to try. I think it could be something wonderful." Harry finished packing the trunk and shrank that, too, hefting it thoughtfully in his hand. "There's no reason you can't back away," he whispered to himself, "as long as you haven't actually walked off the cliff."

Ginny took a step forwards. She had figured out what he was talking about now, and she couldn't let it pass.

"This is _ridiculous_," she said. "Are you trying to tell me that you've always been bent, and just never thought to let me know? Are you trying to tell me that you'll give up everything you've had with me and your best friends and your surrogate family just because you have some exaggerated false sense of betrayal?"

Harry looked up at her, and his eyes were mercilessly clear. He moved towards her. Ginny froze. His magic made the walls of the room seem to dance. She knew it wasn't really happening, but she also couldn't overcome her instinctive dread of his power. He _could _hurt her. He hadn't done it yet, but he _could_.

"I don't know if I'm bent," Harry said, "or straight, or maybe a corkscrew." His voice was deep and calm, but Ginny heard a pulse of building excitement far below the surface that made her wary. _He could still give in any moment—and this isn't a fire we share, like in bed. It's one only he has. _"But I don't think I have to choose anymore in the absence of information.

"Just like I don't have to walk away from my friends and family because I'm leaving _you_." He raised one eyebrow and surveyed her with a look of pity, and Ginny's temper felt as if it were boiling her brain. "They can choose if they want to associate with me. Maybe they won't. But if they do, then I don't have to blame myself.

"And all the things you said about me down the years—" Harry shook his head. "I just _now _realized that I don't have to put up with them to keep people's friendship. I can be Ron's friend and still insist on him respecting me. I can be Hermione's friend and not have to put up with her lectures. I don't scold them or disparage them all the time. They can bloody well start doing the same for me."

Ginny lifted her wand, because she couldn't think of a better response. All Harry did and thought about was leaving _her _out. He didn't want her. He had just been pretending. If he wasn't, he never could have fallen out of love with her so quickly.

She launched the Bat-Bogey Hex at him.

"_Protego_," Harry said calmly, and the shimmering Shield Charm that formed in front of him bounced the hex almost straight back at her. Ginny managed to dodge. Harry shook his head, said, "That was mildly pathetic," and then left.

Long after the echoes of the door shutting had faded, Ginny stood with her head bowed and her hands clenched, clinging to her strength.

Harry wasn't worth weeping over.

*

This time, Roddy didn't have to squeak long in distress before Draco awoke. His dreams had been shallow and restless without Potter's presence, and he opened his eyes and sat up knowing the house-elf's message before he gave it.

"Master Harry Potter is here!" Roddy wailed, trying to stomp on his own feet. "He demands entrance to Master Draco's bedroom immediately!"

"Let him in." Draco started to reach for the dressing gown, and then paused, smiled, and leaned back into the pillows. He saw no reason to pick up something that would almost certainly be torn off him again.

Roddy stared at Draco in disbelief, his eyes popping with an audible sound. "But, Master Draco…" He glanced around as though someone might hear him, stole closer, and whispered, "Master Harry Potter is to be _ravishing _Master Draco."

"God, I hope so," Draco said fervently.

Roddy looked at him with an open mouth some more, then bowed and vanished. Draco drew back the covers and spread his legs lazily. He wasn't sure how long he'd slept, but it was long enough to restore interest to his cock. He wanted the sight to hit Potter when he stepped through the door.

It did, but it didn't stop him, the way Draco had planned. Instead, Potter slid closer to the bed, his shoulders and hips rolling, his eyes wide and dark and greedy and relentless.

"You look better than I imagined," Potter breathed, and pulled his shirt over his head, letting it fall to the floor. He wasn't wearing robes, which Draco approved of. Less clothing to get in the war and make Potter hesitate.

"No last-minute qualms?" Draco taunted, letting his head fall back on the pillow so his hair spread around his face. Plenty of lovers had told him they found him irresistible like that, especially with the color that his blood lent his pale cheeks and chest, and the appreciation in Potter's gaze deepened immediately. He looked pretty damn good with his bare muscles flushed, Draco noted.

"None," Potter answered calmly, and pulled off his trousers. He had unfairly got rid of his socks when Draco wasn't looking. At least it seemed as though Draco would have plenty of chances to appreciate the sight of his feet in the future.

"Even though you aren't sure you want me?" Draco licked his lips as Potter hooked his fingers in his pants.

Potter proved he had a bit of the mischievous schoolboy left in him after all, by pausing there instead of tugging his pants down the way he had everything else and smirking at Draco until Draco squirmed. Then he answered, "I'm pretty sure I want you. What happens later is another question—"

Draco held his breath.

"And one that I've decided not to worry about right now," Potter finished, and pulled his pants down.

God, his cock was so _flushed, _so dark with blood that Draco thought it looked painful. He could imagine the heat if he put his mouth on it. He would have offered to do so, except that Potter strode over, leaped on the bed, and pinned Draco's shoulders to the pillow with his hands in a way that showed he knew exactly what he wanted. And, well, who was Draco to argue with a Gryffindor's certainty unhindered by tiresome moral scruples?

First, Potter gave Draco a kiss that made black stars explode in his vision from lack of air. Then he pulled back and growled "How do we do this?" in a tone that made Draco's balls draw up.

"I—I—" Draco was the one stuttering now, his fingers digging wildly and uselessly at the pillow.

Potter chuckled and leaned back on his heels, following the direction of Draco's eyes rather than his hand to find the lube that Draco kept in one of the small tables next to his bed. Draco usually used that for wanking, though he hadn't needed any earlier.

Potter smeared his cock with the oil, and Draco whined. It was ridiculous to be jealous of a _liquid_, but he was and it hurt and he had to spread his legs and practically hump Potter's knee before the idiot would condescend to pay attention to him.

"Wow," Potter whispered, his fingers trailing over Draco's tensed groin as he reached down and back to his entrance. "You really do want me."

His voice was full of wonder, and Draco glared at him in disbelief. "False modesty," he snapped. "Do you ever get rid of it? Who _wouldn't _want you?"

"I'm not answering that, because I don't want to be depressed right now," Potter said frankly, and sank one oiled finger right into Draco's entrance without so much as a by-your-leave.

Draco bucked and rubbed his cock against Potter's reaching arm. _Yes, _warmth; _yes_, smoothness; _yes, _skin, but it wasn't enough, and Potter sat there with his finger in Draco as if waiting for something, instead of _moving._

"Fuck you," he growled.

"Not this time," Potter said, voice sharp but breathless, and stabbed his finger deeper. Then he joined it with another, and Draco arched his back, deciding that Potter would be a quick study and he didn't need to worry about him. He had been afraid that Potter would hold back when it came up to the moment, asking Draco if it _hurt_ and crooning at him about specialness and asking if he was sure, but he wasn't.

_How many years has he denied what he wanted in favor of what the entire rest of the world wanted? _Draco wondered, as his legs spread until his thighs trembled and his heels almost left the bed. _Too bloody long, if this is the result._

Potter found his prostate and dug at it until he seemed confident that he could find the way back. Then he paused for the barest of moments. Draco glared at him, but only until Potter scooped up Draco's ankles along his arms and he realized that Potter had been trying to decide where his legs should go.

Legs on shoulders, already threatening to slip off from the sheer height of Potter's muscles, and hips thrusting forwards, and Draco's hole slick and clenching and _no, there wasn't more oil needed, Potter had better not stop now and look earnest about it—_

And then Potter was _inside._

Draco threw back his head, his strangled cry ripping free, his mouth bursting with excitement and triumph, his veins burning with adrenaline, because he had a powerful lover and a lover he'd taunted for years and still managed to court to his bed and a victory over the Weasleys and this hurt so much and it was _brilliant._

Of course Potter thrust too fast and too much and too hard, and Draco's legs ached from the position they were holding and also regularly slipped off so that Potter shoved them back into place with irritated little grunts, and of course Draco knew he would be sore in the morning. Why wouldn't he be? This was Potter's first time with a man—

(_It had _better _be his first time with a man)_

—and he had no idea about what was acceptable and what wasn't, and his excitement was ruling him.

But none of those cautious sentiments said anything about the _way_ Potter grunted when he slammed into Draco, so soft and so satisfied that it made Draco's arse squeeze down twice as hard. Or the grip of his fingers as he held Draco's ankles in place, so hard that they were real and Draco would carry the marks. Or the roll and surge and flex of his muscles, an Auror's muscles, beautiful and strong as some wild animal's.

Or the way his eyes shone.

Draco wondered now why he had ever been foolish enough to take any lover who didn't have those radiant green eyes.

His orgasm came from a great distance, a burning coil of white-hot light that wound its way slowly up from his spine and his buttocks and then hit him so hard he screamed and shuddered and then couldn't _stop _shuddering, shaking as though lightning had hit him. The pleasure whirled him and broke him into a turning void where there were green eyes and warm skin and trailing dots of light and warmth like a forge.

When it was gone and Potter paused, froze with his face locked in an expression of astonishment, and spasmed and shouted and pounded his orgasm out, Draco was so tired and so hot that he could only lie there and smile. He did the same thing when Potter fell face-forward across him. He managed, after two minutes of concentration, to lower his legs into a more comfortable position and wrap his arms around Potter.

Potter finally shifted to look at him, jaw loose and eyes wide with wonder.

"Aren't you glad I'm a bastard?" Draco whispered, and kissed him.

*

That had been…

There were no words for what that had been.

Long after his new _lover_—he could taste the word and like it, for now, though he might insist on something else, later—lay snoring, he lay with his eyes open and stared into the darkness.

He'd seen falling stars when he came. The vision was with him now, and he watched the lights streak past his eyes and explode on contact with some new land he couldn't see, and shivered.

He still didn't understand everything that had happened. But he was thinking, now, maybe he didn't _need _to understand. Maybe he really could give in and, even though he thought about the consequences of his actions, he could also think about what _he _wanted.

The realization seemed so simple now, but he didn't think he'd take it for granted, because it had been such a long time coming.

Maybe the world wouldn't end if he did something for himself once in a while, or even something wrong. Maybe this had been wrong. He didn't think he would be able to know until months had passed.

_And more sex._

He smiled. Definitely more sex.

He rolled over and looked down. Draco—as he reckoned he had to think of him now—snored with his mouth open and his forehead wrinkled. Even in sleep, it seemed, he was trying to solve his problems and get what he wanted.

With a grin as he thought about the way Draco would react when he realized the Weasleys could still be part of the picture, Harry fell asleep.

**The End.**


End file.
